Acutely aware of the role my heterosexual male gaze can play in my choice of subjects and images for this blog sometimes, ironically I actually spend more time on those involving men these days, hoping to find something of note with which to achieve a balance.

In itself, this new commercial with boy-band 2PM hardly qualifies. But not only is male objectification an increasingly common theme in Korean advertising in recent months (see here and here for two examples featuring Lee Byung-hun {이병헌} and JYP {박진영} respectively), this would easily be one of the most audacious examples I’m aware of.

And coming so soon after this one for Cob Chicken (Cob 구어조은닭) too, then perhaps, like kissing, male objectification will be yet another advertising taboo discarded in 2009?

Granted, this may sound like exaggeration to readers based outside of Korea: all of the above examples are rather tame compared to their Western counterparts (NSFW) for instance, and the frequency of male objectification in the Korean media is easily paled by that of women, whom are also subject to excessive objectification and commodification in daily life here.

But that media imbalance is hardly confined to Korea, and the speed of change is simply remarkable. After all, however unbelievable it may sound today, recall that social norms prohibited Korean women from publicly admiring men’s bodies until as recently as 2002!

Meanwhile, apologies for not providing a translation for the commercial, but given the product’s name then I think you’ll quickly get the idea!^^ And I would very much appreciate it if readers could tell me of any more examples like it that I may have missed.

(For all posts in the Korean Sociological Images series, see here)

( Source )

Granted, Marxism might not be the first thing one thinks of when one sees Lee Hyori’s navel. But as it turns out, it’s a perfect fit.

If you’ll bear with me for a moment, once a market is saturated, I learned at university in New Zealand, there is a inherent tendency for a company’s rate of profit to fall. But this can be offset by re-marketing and/or making new varieties of the original product, and accordingly my lecturer posited the plethora of varieties of Coca-Cola available in the U.S. as a reflection of the greater capitalistic development of its economy (read: saturation of its domestic market) compared to New Zealand’s, which then only had two. Indeed, advertising culture in New Zealand in the late-1990s, he suggested, was only akin to that of the US in the 1950s in its scale and intensity, no matter how brash and “American” New Zealanders regarded it.

It comes as a great surprise then, that even in the U.S. sports drinks are still “wildly skewed towards men”, and only within the last couple of years were drinks developed that took into account their (usually) lower-intensity exercise and dislike of the salty, high-calorie drinks available.

But one seriously wonders if equivalents will ever be available for Korean women. As the following summary of this 2006 study explains:

Diet advertisements in Korean magazines appear to promote more passive dieting methods (e.g., diet pills, aroma therapy, diet crème, or diet drinks) than active dieting methods (e.g., exercise). Results further indicated that women may be misled to believe that dieting is simple, easy, quick, and effective without pain, if they consume the advertised product. This study suggests that there is an urgent need to establish government regulations or policies about diet products and their claims in Korea. Magazine publishers also need to recognize their role in societal well-being and accept some responsibility for advertisements in their magazines.

Naturally, I’ve discussed that study a great deal on the blog (see here for all the links), and it is primarily in that context that I want to examine the burgeoning Korean tea-drink market. But the economics of the industry still matter of course, and so this post is my translation of an article on the subject from the August 2008 edition of IM AD (아이엠애드; Korea’s only remaining advertising magazine), to be used as a resource for that analysis at a later date (or your own).

It’s rather long, so I’ve decided to provide each part in stages over the next week to give readers a better chance to digest them (particularly those interested in the original Korean). As you read this then, I will have just posted part two of three!

블랙빈테라티의 본격 웰빙 마케팅

Full-scale Black Bean Tea Well-being Marketing

음료 시장에서 탄산음료는 서서히 김이 빠지고, 과즙음료는 단맛을 잃었다. 차음료는 백 번을 우려도 남을 만큼 꾸준한 성장을 기록하고 있다. 또 동아오츠카의 블랙빈테라티는 시장에서 검은콩 음료를 새로운 트렌드로 만들어냈다. 그리고 이번에 진행한 온라인 캠페인은 신선한 ‘광고 테라피’라고 불러도 좋다.

While the market for carbonated drinks is slowly losing its fizz over time, and that for fruit drinks is losing its sweetness, the market for tea drinks remains as hot as the first time they are brewed, with the entrance of Donga-Otsuka’s ‘Black Bean Terra’ drink in particular creating a whole new trend. You could call the accompanying online advertisement campaign fresh “Advertisement Therapy” too.

음료 시장의 트랜드 ‘윌빙 + 디이어트’

Drink Market Trends of  “Well-being and Diet”

최근 한국의 음료 시장에는 몇 년 전부터 지속되고 있는 웰빙 트렌드에 맞춰 새로운 브랜드가 끊임없이 등장하고 있다. 소비자의 건강 증시 풍조에 따라 최근 3년간 탄산음료 시장은 6-7%대의 마이너스 성장늘 기록했다. 탄산음료는 2006년 월드컵 특수 등으로 반짝 성장률을 보였지만, 플레이버 음료 및 유성 탄산 브랜드의 매출이 급격히 줄어들면서 현재까지 하향 곡선을 그리고 있다. 과즙음료 또한 2006년 초에 출시된 ‘미녀는 석규를 촣아해’가 인기를 끈 것을 제외하면 대부분 주스 브랜드가 부진에 빠졌다.

Since the beginning of the well-being trend several years ago, new brands taking advantage of it haven’t stopped appearing. In accordance with consumers’ new focus on their health, the consumption of carbonated drinks has decreased 6-7% since 2006, although there was a brief spike in consumption during the 2006 World Cup. The consumption of flavored drinks and milky drinks has shown definite decreases too, and with the exception of the “미녀는 석규를 촣아해” drink popular at the beginning of 2006, the consumption of fruit juice drinks has stagnated.

이처럼 대부분의 탄산/과즙음료가 마이너스 곡선을 그렸던 반면, 차 음료는 시장에서 지속적으로 성장하면서 지난해에도 전년 대비 30%에 달하는 신장세를 기록했다. 2000년을 전후로 녹차 제품은 차 음료 시장을 주도하고 있었다. 지나치게 달거나 자극적인 탄산/과즙 음료에 비해 담백한 맛을 지닌 녹차는 고정적인 소비자층을 형성하면서 2004년 당시 차음료 시장의 80%를 차지할 만큼 인기가 높았다. 하지만 녹차가 가진 떫은 맛은 10~20대 소비자들에게 어필하는 데 한계가 있었다. 또한 웰빙은 물론 다이어트와 미용에 관심이 많은 20대 여성이 시장의 핵심 소비자로 떠오르면서 맛과 성분을 개선한 혼합차를 선보이기 시작했다.

Like this, most carbonated and fruit juice drinks have a minus growth curve, but on the other hand the consumption of tea drinks grew by 30% in 2007. Green tea was the most popular tea drink around 2000. Compared to excessively sweet and stimulating carbonated and fruit juice drinks, consumers began to prefer plain green tea drinks and so a market was formed, comprising 80% of the tea-drink market by 2004. But green tea is very astringent, so it had limited appeal to consumers in their teens and 20s. Hence companies have started to develop new, more pleasant blended tea-drinks to be marketed to women in their 20s, who naturally have a lot of interest in dieting and their appearance.

처음 혼합차 시장에서 두각을 나타낸 것은 남양유업의 ‘몸이 가벼워지는 시간 17차’ 였다. 이후 광독제약이 ‘광동 옥수수수염차’를 내놓으면서 경챙은 가열됐고, 현재 옥수수수염 원료 제품만 30여 가지가 넘는다. 한 가지 눈에 띄는 점은 이들 제품의 공통적인 특징이 노화방지와 피부미용 효과가 있는 한약재를 비롯, L-카르티닌 등 지방 연소 기능이 있는 성분을 첨가해 젊은 여성들에게 폭발적인 호응을 얻고 있다는 사실이다. 또 각 업체들은 여성 연예인들 활용한 스타 마케팅에도 공을 들이고 있다. 이들은 전지현 (남양유업), 김태희 (광동제약)와 김아중 (해태음료) 등의 톱 모델을 자사 브랜드 이미지와 접목시켜 여성 소비자들의 구매욕구를 자극하고 있다.

Originally, Namyang’s “Make Your Body Lighter Time 17 Tea” stood out in the blended tea drink market. But a little later, an intense rivalry developed between that and with Gwangdong’s “Gwangdong Corn Cob Roots” drinks, and now there are as many as 30 products with that ingredient on the market. One noticeable point is that all these products contain both some traditional Korean medicine, which helps to prevent aging and maintain skin’s youthful appearance, and also L-Keratin, which helps to burn fat, both of which make these drinks have a very strong appeal to young women. Each company is putting a lot of effort into using famous stars to market their products, such as Jun Ji-hyun for Namyang, Kim Tae Hee for GwangDong, Kim Ah-joong for Haetai, and each hopes to have them and their images firmly associated with their brands by consumers.

독자적인 시장을 형성한 검은콩 음료

A Market for Black Bean Drinks Has Been Formed

외연의 확대는 여기서 그치지 않은다. 지난해부터는 곡물과 한약재 등을 섞은 혼합차 시장에서 검은콩이라는 단일 원료를 부각시킨 제품들이 출시되디 시작했다.

This market has not stopped expanding, and from last year, companies have started developing new blended tea drinks mixed with grains and/or Korean medicinal products. It was in this context that drinks with black beans as the sole ingredient were launched.

지난해 5월 해태음료는 검은콩을 ㅇ뤈료로 한 ‘차온 까만콩차(이하 까만 콩차)’를 선보였다. 한때 일화의 ‘햇살 가득한 까만콩차’가 브랜드명과 용기 디자인 흡사해 미투 (me too) 마케팅 논쟁이 일었을 정도로 검은콩 음료는 단기간에 시장에서 영역을 확장해나갔다.

( Source )

The market share of Black Bean drinks has increased rapidly, resulting in many cases of “me too marketing”. Haetai’s “Cha-eon Dark Black Bean Tea” (Dark Bean Tea) for instance, introduced last May, was quickly involved in heated competition with Ilhwa’s similar-sounding “Dark Bean Tea full of Sunshine,” which even had a similar design of bottle too.

까만콩차보다 한 달 앞서 동아오츠카가 론칭한 ‘블랙빈테라티’ 역시 블랙음료 시장을 빠르게 장악했다. 100% 검은콩을 우려냈음을 강조함과 동시에 차카테킨과 L-카르티닌을 함유한 제품 특징으로 기존차 음료의 핵심 타깃인 20 대 여성을 확보한다.

Donga-Otsuka’s “Black Bean Terra Tea” was launched one month before Dark Black Bean Tea, and also quickly established a foothold in the market. It is made entirely of the juices from crushed and squeezed black beans, and its catechin and L-keratin make it especially appealing to its core market of women in their twenties.

사실 무주공산과 다름없던 블랙음료 시장에서 결과적으로 ‘생존’과 ‘성공’을 동시에 달성한 브랜드는 까만콩차와 블랙빈테라티 뿐이라고 할 수 있다. 이 둘은 제품의 내외적인 측면에서 대동소이하면서도 명확한 차이를 보이며 경쟁하고 있다. 까만콩차가 국산 서리태만을 사용하는데 비해 블랙빈테라티 서리태와 서목태를 섞어 맛이 서로 다르다.

Actually, the black bean drink was entirely new, and so the only brands which came to survive and succeed were Dark Black Bean Tea and Black Bean Terra Tea. These two products are very similar, but do have some differences. Dark Black Bean Tea is made from Korean seoritae beans, which are blue inside, while Black Bean Terra Tea is made from seoritae beans and seomogtae (Rhynchosia Nulubilis) beans, and so they taste different.

또 까만콩차와 영화배우 정우성과 지현우를 CF 모델로 선정해 고정 타깃인 여성뿐 아니라 차 음료시장에서 소외되다시피 했던 남성들을 아울렀던 반면, 블랙빈테라티는 이효리를 브랜드 모델로 선정해 젊은 여성층에게 제품 홍보와 마케팅을 집중시컸던 점 역시 차이를 봉ㄴ다. 물론 오프라인 여역을 토대로 한 무료 시음행사와 가종 이벤트 전략은 두 제품 외에 대부분의 음료 브랜드에서도 볼 수 있는 전통적인 프로모션 형태이다.

Also, Dark Black Bean Tea has used Jung Woo-sung and Ji Hyun-woo (right) in its commercials, indicating that its target consumers are not just women but also men who reject the notion that only women drink tea drinks. On the other hand, Black Bean Terra Tera has used Lee Hyori to market itself exclusively to young women. Of course, just like for other drinks, offline they are also used to market their products in various free-drinking events and so on (end).

보이는 라디오, 끌리는 캠페인

Visual Radio: A Campaign That Draws You In

( Source )

이번 블랙빈테라티의 온라인 캠페인 (블랙빈FM 이벤트)은 브랜드 론칭 1년여 만에 처음 진행된 것이다. 이전까지는 웹사이트 내에서의 자체 홍보 외에 TV CF와 오프라인 프로므션 위주로 마케팅을 실시했다. 온라인 캠페인을 담당했던 다츠커뮤니케이션의 허정 대리는 “블랙빈테라티의 경쟁 브랜드는 크게 차 음료와 검은콩 음료로 분류된다. 하지만 17차를 비롯한 대부분이 스타마케팅에 의지해 온라인에서는 이밴트와 제품 자체의 홍보에 주력했다면, 블락빈테라티 캠페인은 코어 타깃은 1929여성들이 즐길 수 있는 다양한 콘텐츠를 만들어 자연스럽게 브랜드 인지도를 높이는 것이 목적”이라고 설명했다.

While the Black Bean Terra Tea drink was launched over a year ago, “this Black Bean FM Event” was the first time it has had a big online campaign; previously, minor website promotions, television commercials, and offline promotions were the main methods of promoting the drink. As Heo-jeong, representative for Dartz Communications (in charge of the online campaign) explained, “Black Bean Thera Tea’s competing brands can be categorized into either tea-drinks or black-bean drinks. But while most (including 17 tea) concentrated their efforts on either star-marketing, online events, and promotions of the products itself, the aim of Black Bean Terra Tea’s campaign was to focus on more varied events, so as to better increase brand awareness among its core target of 19-29 year old women.”

실제로 블랙빈 FM이벤트는 이름에서 드러나듯 라디오 동영상과 CM송을 캠페인의 킬러 콘텐츠로 활용하고 있다. 보이는 라디오는 브랜드 모델인 이효리가 DJ로 출연해 미용과 패션, 다이트 등의 다양한 소재로 진행하는 형식으로 구성돼 있으며, 유저들은 라디오를 ‘시청’하면서 댓글을 등록할 수 있다. 때문에 TV광고 제작 당시에 이미 촬영됐었던 이 영상은 마치 사이트에서 실시간으로 유저들과 대화를 나누는 듯한 인상을 주기도 한다. 허정 대리는 “사이트의 커뮤니케션 콘셉트가 ‘젊은 여성들끼리 수다를 떠는것’이었기 때문에 그들의 주된 관심사를 이효리는 통해 전달함으로써 자연스럽게 브랜드와 모델레 대한 호감도가 증가할 수 있었다”고 말했다.

As is obvious from the name, the Black Bean FM Event’s killer content was the use of radio, videos, and advertising jingles, or a “visual radio.” In addition to model Lee Hyori performing as its DJ, it also consisted of information about various things such as beauty, fashion, and dieting (and so on), which users could register and leave comments about. As Heo-jeong explains, the choice of Lee Hyori as a model naturally encouraged discussion of these topics among young-women – the core of the site’s communication concept – and because of this, a Black Bean FM Event video that gives the impression of Lee Hyori interacting with the user was produced for the website in advance of the TV commercials. Thus, the strategy greatly increased the chances for brand recognition to rise amongst young women.

CM송을 활용한 ‘블랙빈테라티 CM송 콘테스트’ 이벤트 또한 눈에 띄는 부분이다. 최근 CM송을 활용한 이동통신사 광고가 화제를 모으고 있지만, 음료 광고에서는 보기 드문 사례이기 때문이다. 이미 TV 광고와 사이트의 인트로를 통해 CM의 원곡을 감상한 유저들은 이벤트 페이지에서 힙합과 R&B, 트로트 등 4가지 버전의 CM송을 모두 감상한 후 순위를 매긴다. 이벤트에 참여한 유저들은 추첨을 통해 경품을 지급받게 되며, 동영상을 다운로드 또는 스크랩해 미니홈피와 블로그 등에 등록한 경우 재차 경품 기회가 제공된다. 허 데리는 “블랙빈테라티의 CM송을 버전별로 반복 감상함으로써 소비자들에게 브랜드와 제품에 대한 긍정적인 이미지를 형성하게 된다”고 설명하며 “콘테스트 동영상의 다운로드/스크랩을 유도한 전략은 소비자들 스스로 웹사이트의 홍보는 물론 블랙빈 FM과 이벤트 내용을 바이럴하는 ‘MGM (Member Get Member, 일명 ‘권유마케팅’으로 불리며 고객을 통해 또 다른 신규 고객을 확보하는 마케팅 방법)’ 효과를 거둘 수 있었다”고 덧붙였다. 이외에도 지난 5월 1일부터 한달간 진행했던 ‘CF모델 까메오 이벤트’ 역시 소비자들의 적극적인 참여를 유도했다.

The “Black Bean Terra Tea Advertising Song Contest” event was also a prominent feature of the website. While using advertising jingles is common for advertisements on mobile phones, it is very rare for tea-drinks. But here, users who have had already heard the jingles used in Black Bean Terra Tea’s TV advertisements and website could listen to different versions of them in different music styles such as hip-hop, R&B, trot, and so on, and personally rank them. They could also enter into a lottery and win prizes, and increase the number the times they entered by downloading videos and posting them on their blogs and websites. As Heo-jeong explained, “through being able to listen to the various versions of the jingles, users acquired a positive image of the brand and the product” and ” the viral PR strategy of getting consumers themselves to download and post videos to their own websites, known as ‘MGM,’ (Member Get Member, also called ‘Persuasive Marketing,’ a method by which customers attract new customers themselves) was very effective.” Besides this, from May the 1st there was also a month-long ‘Commercial Model Cameo Event’ which similarly encouraged consumers to actively participate (end).

And the third and final part, which discusses cross-media marketing, will hopefully be up later this week. In the meantime, if this post has piqued your interest in gendered advertising in Korea, then you may also enjoy this post on the evolving images of women in soju advertisments.

( Source )

With apologies to those readers that have come to expect more serious posts on this blog, but I thought this was an exceptionally cute picture of UEE (유이)!

Yes, even I need to let my hair down on occasion. And of course I’m well aware that it’s part and parcel of Lotte’s marketing of its new Cheoum Cheoreom Cool (처음처럼 쿨) brand of soju to women, which strangely uses the sexual availability of, well, women as its main theme, and that both it and others in the series have been extensively photoshopped. Despite her resulting rather alien-looking legs though, I think she looks simply incredible in the orange top, and hope it becomes fashionable.

Have any Korea-based readers seen it in real life yet?

( Source )

For the fledgling movie reviewer, revealing one’s inexperience with cinema is never a wise move. And adding that this inexperience stems from an at best indifferent, at worst active dislike of the subject? Positively suicidal, at least in terms of becoming known as an authority on it.

Fortunately however, that is not my aim with this post. Rather, it marks the first of many movie reviews I’ll write as I personally struggle to see Korean cinema in a new light from now on, hopefully providing readers with an entertaining and informative guide in the process.

I won’t bore readers with the combination of personal factors that led me to underappreciate Korean cinema for the last 9 years here then; suffice to say, many had little to do with the quality of Korean cinema itself. Hearing of them though, no less than a professor of Korean popular culture, a professor of Korean literature, and a published science-fiction writer all recommended Peppermint Candy (박하사탕) for me to start with (the latter even loaned me his boxed set of director Lee Chang-dong’s DVDs), so I had high expectations for this movie. And even if you’re not blessed with such uniquely knowledgeable friends yourself, it doesn’t take long to learn that it has a strong place in Korean popular culture (it was the first domestic movie chosen as an opening film for PIFF), and the screenshot below in particular.

And yet for all my friends’ high praise, for all the accolades, I found this to be a bleak, deeply frustrating movie. Feeling that perhaps my own inexperience was to blame, I forced myself to watch it again, this time with my wife. But unfortunately I gained nothing from the benefit of hindsight – more things to critique in fact – and my wife even fell asleep well before the end.

( Source: mamimisama )

The film opens in spring 1999, with main character Yong-ho (Sol Kyung-gu {설경구}) joining a 20-year reunion of his old factory social group on the banks of a river. Quickly revealed to be bitter and angry, his behavior extremely erratic, within a few minutes he’s welcoming his death from an oncoming train on a nearby railway bridge, screaming the now classic line “I want to go back!” (또 다시 돌아갈래). Then it’s 3 days earlier (the first of 6 backward jumps in the story), and we see him buying a gun, then toying with killing himself. Soon it emerges that despite appearances, he’s virtually penniless, and that this is the result of his former business-partner stealing his money, a loan shark charging exorbitant rates of interest, and possibly his ex-wife also (played by Kim Yeo-jin {김여진}).

Then it’s 5 years earlier, and we see him as a successful business-person, and I anticipated seeing the events that led to his financial downfall. Instead, only the dissolution of his marriage is portrayed, for which both partners prove to be at blame. At which point that I began comparing the movie to Clerks.

Yes really, the 1994 budget US comedy. Please bear with me for a moment.

Easy to miss amongst all the jokes, towards the end of Clerks there is a scene where the main character Dante Hicks (played by Brian O’Halloran) complains about everything that has happened to him that day, as, indeed, he has been doing throughout the entire movie. What sets this scene aside though, is that in response, Randal Graves (played by Jeff Anderson) points out that everything he’s complaining about is in fact entirely his own fault. And with those 10-15 seconds and 2 or 3 lines, for me the movie was transformed from merely a good but ulitmately forgettable comedy – I find it difficult to laugh at it today – to something with a clear moral, and one that I have taken to heart ever since.

Granted, at the age of 18, one is probably more inclined to deliberately seek out such morals from movies than at the age of 33, imaginary or otherwise. And as the events that transformed Young-ho from a very innocent and dreamy young man to the bitter and twisted individual that commits suicide 20 years later are revealed, undoubtedly there is much to be gained from Peppermint Candy also, particularly with such suburb acting from Sol Kyung-gu, Kim Yeo-jin, and Moon So-ri (문소리), playing his first girlfriend.

( Source: momo369 )

Most of the important ones however, such as how he came to lose all his money, why he joined the (notoriously brutal) police, why he married his wife, and why he treated his first girlfriend so appallingly, are simply never answered. And therein lies the rub: these gaps are simply inexplicable in a movie about so focused on the linear, chronological development of a single character (albeit in reverse), emphasized cinematographically throughout by footage of trains between each segment in the story, and also – with the benefit of a second viewing – the sounds of trains passing in many important scenes. Just like Darcy Paquet of Koreanfilm.org then, I too found that

…ultimately the main character remains out of our grasp. Lee denies us any easy explanations for our hero’s character, or excuses for his behavior. The film frustrated me as I was watching it for the first time; I wanted greater access to the hero’s feelings.

Unlike him however, I wasn’t “shattered” upon reaching the end of the movie: more exasperated. And I thoroughly regret watching it twice.

Perhaps as if to subconsciously compensate for these gaps in a movie that they otherwise clearly thoroughly enjoyed though, I have noticed many other reviewers of this movie (particularly Anthony Leong and Thomas Spurlin) finding Young-ho’s character to be both a product of and metaphor for the turbulent 20 years of South Korean history that the movie covers. But this is simply bogus: having a knowledge of that history doesn’t add anything to the movie, nor does the movie in any way educate you if you lack it. Moreover, Young-ho’s financial troubles for instance (vague as they are), are by no means related to the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, and what happens to him during his military service in Kwangju May 1980 could have happened at any other time before Korea democratized. Indeed, given that the movie’s narrative would have worked equally as well in 1969-1989 or even 1959-1979, I’d argue that in fact its setting is almost irrelevant.

( Source: momo369 )

While I ultimately don’t recommend seeing this movie then, readers that already have may well disagree with my take on it, and I’m more than happy to be persuaded of its virtues. And I do, again, acknowledge the superb acting, and should also point out that the movie is also interesting for its depiction of Korea in the 1980s, for which I highly recommend the book Yogong: Factory Girl by Robert F. Spencer (1988) to get a sense of just how different daily life was in Korea then.

But however naive and unsophisticated it sounds, I still apply the same standards to movie today as I did when I was 18. And lacking any readily discernible moral then, nor educating viewers about an issue or giving me a fresh new perspective on a previously well-known one, I failed to see the point of this one I’m afraid.

Next week: A Good Lawyer’s Wife (바람난 가족; 2003), which coincidentally features two of the same three main actors.

Update: In hindsight, perhaps the movie would have been more meaningful to me if I hadn’t already watched Clerks?

( Source: realistic dreamer )

A quick survey on contraception use in Korea that was on the front page of Yahoo! Korea recently.

Unfortunately, not only is there no information about the methodology used, but the accompanying article is rather short, and states the obvious several times. One wonders what the point of it was.

I feel certain that it was not intended to be simply sensationalist though, as if it was then presumably it would have attracted more than 11 comments from Korea’s infamous netizens. And however dubious, its results are broadly similar to those of more reliable surveys, which is why I chose to highlight it here.

The notion that contraception is primarily men’s responsibility really does seem to be an ingrained part of Korean sexual culture then?

男·女 65% ‘피임 고민’ 08/10/09

미혼남녀들의 큰 고민 중 하나가 피임.

One big concern [Korean] men and women face is contraception.

20~39세의 미혼남녀 1,127명을 대상으로 ‘피임’에 대해 설문조사한 결과, 대부분의 미혼 남녀가 피임으로 고민해본 적이 있는 것으로 나타났다.

1, 127 single men and women aged between 20 and 39 were given a survey about contraception, and the vast majority replied that they have worried about it at some point. [Here are the questions and results].

피임으로 고민해본 경험?

Have you ever worried about contraception?

남자 59%, 여자 71%가 ‘고민해본 경험이 있다’고 답했다. 또한 남자보다 여자들이 피임으로 인한 고민이 많은 것으로 나타났다.

59% of men and 71% of women replied that that had. It emerged that more women than men had worried about it.

피임, 남자와 여자 중에 누가 더 신경 써야 하는가?

Who should be more concerned about contraception? Men, or women?

남자 79%, 여자 83%가 ‘당연히 남자가 더 신경 써줘야 한다’고 답했다.

79% of men and 83% of women replied that “Of course it is men that have to be more concerned.”

선호하는 피임 방법은?

What type of contraception do you prefer?

주로 쓰는 피임 방법으로 ‘콘돔’이 63%를 차지, 1위로 꼽혔다. 이어 ‘체외 사정’, ‘배란 주기법’, ‘먹는 피임약’ 사용 등이 뒤따랐다.

The most preferred choice was the condom, with 63% of respondents choosing that. That was followed by the withdrawal method, the rhythm method, and the oral contraceptive pill.

성관계시 피임이 중요한가?

Is contraception important in a sexual relationship?

남자 95.10% 여자 100%가 ‘중요하다’고 답해, 남녀 모두 피임의 중요성에 대해서 인식하고 있는 것으로 나타났다.

95.1% of men and 100% of women replied that it was important. Both men and women perceive it as being important.

이 번 설문조사 결과, 미혼남녀 모두 피임의 중요성에 대해 인식하면서도 정작 피임을 제대로 못해 고민하는 것으로 나타났다. 이는 감정이나 분위기에 휩쓸려 피임을 등한시하는 경우가 많기 때문. 피임도 사랑을 나누는 하나의 과정임을 인식하는 것이 무엇보다 중요할 것이다.

While this survey showed that both men and women perceived contraception as being important, in reality many had experienced difficulties with it. And many people neglected it because of the atmosphere or getting swept away in the heat of the moment also. But people need to acknowledge that using contraception is part of the process of making love (end).

It’s official: from now on, I’ll be using Korean-language sources on gender and sexuality here just as much as English ones.

Partially, this is simply to maintain and improve my Korean ability, which I’ve sorely neglected since starting a new job back in July. But the main reason is that not only can foreign-language commentary on any subject quickly become out of date, it also makes one reliant on the views of those Koreans fluent in English, which are not necessarily reflective of Koreans as a whole.

Consider the following by sociologist Yoshio Sugimoto for instance. He is talking about Japan, but his points are equally relevant to Korea:

Dominating in the upper echelons of society, core subcultural groups are able to control the educational curriculum, influence the mass media, and prevail in the areas of publishing and publicity. They outshine their peripheral counterparts in establishing their modes of life and expectations in the national domain and presenting their subcultures as the national culture. The samurai spirit, the kamikaze vigor, and the soul of the Yamato race, which some male groups may have as part of the dominant subculture of men, are promoted as presenting Japan’s national culture….

More generally, the slanted views of Japan’s totality tend to reproduce because writers, readers, and editors of publications on the general characteristics of Japanese society belong to the core subcultural sphere. Sharing their subcultural base, they conceptualize and hypothesize in a similar way, confirm their portrayal of Japan between themselves, and rarely seek outside confirmation….(An Introduction to Japanese Society, pp. 12-13).

And in particular:

Core subcultural groups overshadow those on the periphery in inter-cultural transactions too. Foreign visitors to Japan, who shape the images of Japan in their own countries, interact more intensely with core subcultural groups than with peripheral ones. In cultural exchange programs, Japanese who have houses, good salaries, and university educations predominate among the host families, language trainers, and introducers of Japanese culture…(p. 13)

After two years of immersing myself in (limited) English-language sources on gender and sexuality then, it’s high time to make Korean language-ones my starting point instead.

To that end, let me begin by recommending the blog PlayHolic (플레이홀릭) written by a Korean woman from Jeju called Im-ji (임지; probably not her full name). I’ve been following her on Twitter for several months now, but I confess it was only a few days ago that I first really read her tweets, my curiosity picqued by one that mentioned Talk on Sex (토크온섹스), which turned out to be a weekly podcast that she is the co-host of. At over an hour long and (not unreasonably) with no transcripts though, then those are well beyond my ability to keep up, but fortunately her blog entries aren’t. I’ve translated this recent one on Korean attitudes to contraception below.

Coming in addition to this recent post of mine on the subject, admittedly it probably provides no new information for readers of this blog, but it does at least demonstrate that reliable information about the contraceptive pill is available in Korea. Unfortunately Korean women are generally disinclined to seek that information out though, as like I explain here (and Im-ji briefly alludes to), many fear that being proactive and insistent on using contraception will make them appear sluttish to their partners, and in turn possibly their peer group.

For those reasons, I’ll be focusing in the next few weeks on finding any attempts that have been made to counter these stereotypes, and particularly by Korean celebrities and/or institutions. For the former, a good person for me to start might be former S.E.S. member Eugene (김유진), who advertised the contraceptive pill in 2006 (two examples are included below).

(I apologize in advance for any mistakes in the translation, and welcome any corrections if any readers feel it needs them)

피임에 대한 여성들의 고민 / Women’s Troubles With Contraception (20/10/2009)

피임은 인류에게 떼려야 뗄 수 없는 영원한 숙제나 마찬가지이다. 미혼은 미혼이기에, 기혼자들은 미리 세운 가족 계획에 따라 피임을 할 수밖에 없다.

Contraception is inseparable from being human: it is a perpetual problem. But while married women have to make plans about having children, unmarried women shouldn’t have children and so have no choice but to use it.

그 피임 방법이 누구나를 만족시키고, 쉽다면 행복하겠지만 안타깝게도 실제 피임은 그리 간단한 문제만은 아니다.

Everybody should use a contraceptive method that is satisfactory for them, and if it is easy to use then they will be happy. But unfortunately the reality is that choosing contraception is not a simple issue.

( Source: Naver Movies )

남녀 모두 각자가 선호하는 피임법이 있기 마련이고, 제대로 피임을 하지 않으면 불안감과 초조감에 섹스를 즐길 수 없다.

Of course, all men and women should use the contraceptive method(s) they prefer, but if they are not used properly then this can make one feel ill at ease and nervous and unable to properly enjoy sex.

아무래도 임신은 여성의 몸을 빌어 나타나기 때문에 피임에 대한 부담감은 여성이 더 크기 마련이다.

However, as it is women’s bodies that are affected by pregnancy then of course women feel more of the burden for contraception.

피임이 제대로 되지 않을 경우, 여성들은 임신에 대한 불안감 때문에 섹스에 집중하지 못한다. 또섹스가 끝나고 나서도 임신 가능성에 대한 공포감에 시달린다. 인터넷 게시판에는 임신진단시약과 사후피임약에 대한 물음이 끊이질 않는다.

If contraception is not used correctly, then women become nervous about becoming pregnant and are unable to concentrate on enjoying having sex. They are very uneasy about this possibility after having sex also. Questions about pregnancy tests and morning-after pills never cease on internet cafes and message boards.

그렇다면 여성들은 과연 피임을 제대로 하고 있을까?

How can women use contraception properly then?

산부인과 전문의들로 구성된 피임연구회가 세계피임의 날을 맞아 19~34세 여성 1,000명을 대상으로 실시한 ‘한국 여성의 피임에 대한 인식과 행태 조사’에 따르면, 2,30대 여성의 44.5%가 ‘피임은 남성이 해야 옳다’고 답했다. 오직 4.8%만이 ‘피임은 여성이 해야 한다’고 대답했다. 이는 여성들이 남성들에게 피임을 의존하고 있다는 것으로 해석해도 무방할 듯 싶다.

Gynecologists and contraception-research centers recently welcomed World Contraception Day, and according to a survey of knowledge and attitudes to contraception of 1000 Korean women aged between 19 and 34, 44.5% replied that “contraception is men’s responsibility,” but only 4.8% replied that it is women’s responsibility. In short, Korean women rely on men to provide and use contraception.

( Source: cupitee )

피임을 하지 않은 상태에서 성관계 후의 대처 방법도 ‘임신진단시약으로 임신 여부를 확인’하는 비율이 62.4%, ‘응급피임약(사후피임약)을 복용하겠다’고 답한 비율이 30.7%로 나타났다.

When those women that don’t use contraception were asked how they dealt with the possibility of becoming pregnant, 62.4% replied that they used a pregnancy test, and 30.7% replied that they used emergency contraception.

피임을 남성의 몫으로 떠넘기는 경우, 콘돔을 사용한다면 그나마 다행이다. 문제는 질외사정법 등으로 피임을 떠넘기는 경우이다. 질외사정법은 엄밀히 이야기하면 올바른 피임 방법이라 할 수 없다. 질외사정은 질 내 사정에 비해 임신 가능성이 줄어들 순 있지만 사정 이전에 이미 정자가 일부 정액에 섞여 분비되므로 엄밀한 의미에서는 피임법이라 부를 수 없다.

In the case of men fulfilling their portion of a couple’s responsibility to use contraception, it is lucky [for women] if they use condoms. Those that use the withdrawal method will have problems though, as it is not a precise method. Of course, if the man does not ejaculate into the woman’s vagina then the possibility of becoming pregnant is lowered, but sperm and semen can still mix and be secreted before a man ejaculates.

가장 많은 연인들이 이용하는 피임법이 콘돔이다. 간편하고, 몸에 무리가 가지 않는 방법이기 때문이다. 그러나 그 이질감 때문에 남성들은 물론 여성들 중 일부도 콘돔 사용을 꺼려하기도 한다.

By far, Korean lovers’ preferred choice of contraception is the condom. It is convenient and does not place a burden on the body. However, because of the reduced feeling many men and also some women don’t like to use it.

그럴 때 선택할 수 있는 피임법이 먹는 피임약이다.

In  that case, one alternative is the contraceptive pill.

( Source: Encyber )

그러나 우리나라에서 먹는 피임약은 유달리 그 편견의 정도가 심하다. 체중을 증가시키거나 불임에 이를 수 있다는 오해가 팽배하기 때문이다.

However, in Korea the contraceptive pill has an exceptionally bad reputation. Rumors and misunderstandings about it have spread easily, such as it increasing your weight and causing sterility.

먹는 피임약은 임신을 가능하게 하는 호르몬인 에스트로겐과 프로게스테론을 통해 여성의 배란 및 생리를 조절하는 약이다. 피임 실패율이 낮고 콘돔처럼 성감을 떨어뜨리지 않기 때문에 잦은 성관계를 갖는 연인이나 부부에게 적합한 피임법이다.

[But] through the hormones estrogen and progesterone, the contraceptive pill is a medicine that can control when you ovulate and have your period. It also has a lower failure rate than the condom, and doesn’t reduce sexual feeling. For these reasons, it is particularly appropriate for lovers who often have sex and for married couples.

살이 찌거나 여드름이 나는 등의 부작용 등은 초창기 피임약에서 나타났던 증상이나 최근 저용량 피임약들이 도입되면서 이런 부작용들을 해결하고 있다.

It is true that first generation contraceptive pills did have the side effects of causing women to gain weight and cause acne, but those have been resolved in more recent versions by lowering the dosages.

먹는 피임약은 다른 피임법과 마찬가지로 사용을 중단하면 바로 임신 능력이 회복된다. 장기 여행 등으로 피임약을 복용해 본 여성이라면 약을 먹지 않을 경우, 바로 생리가 찾아오는 것을 경험해봤을 것이다.

Like other contraceptive methods, as soon as you stop using the contraceptive pill your fertility recovers. Women who have gone on extended trips and stop taking the pill have reported that their period returned quickly.

또 먹는 피임약이 호르몬을 조절하기 때문에 막연하게 나쁘다는 이미지가 있는데, 먹는 피임약은 전부 용해되며, 복용하지 않을 땐 체내에 그 성분이 남아 있지 않기 때문에 영향을 미치지 않는 걸로 알려져 있다.

Because the contraceptive pill works by controlling one’s hormones, then it has a vague, bad image in Korea. But as the contents of the pill are completely absorbed into the body when you take it, then there are no lingering effects if you decide to stop using it.

특히 국내에 최근 출시된 야즈는 기존 먹는 피임약이 21일간 복용하면, 7일간 쉬었던 데 비해 24일간 복용하고 4일은 위약을 복용하는 세계최초의 24/4 용법 방식으로 체내 호르몬 변화의 폭을 감소시켜 전체 생리주기 동안 더 안정된 호르몬 수준을 유지하는 것으로 나타났다.

In particular, a new contraceptive pill called Yaz has been released, and this is the first in the world which you can take for 24 days and have a 4 day break, unlike the standard 21 days and 7 days respectively. This change means that your hormone levels don’t fluctuate so much when you have your period.

임신은 비록 여자가 하는 것이지만 그 과정에 이르기까지에는 남녀 모두가 공동의 역할과 책임이 있다. 그렇기 때문에 피임은 남자의 몫이 아닌 여성과 남성이 함께 챙겨야 하는 당연한 책임이다. 여자가 적극적으로 피임을 하는 것에 대해 주변의 시선을 신경 쓸 필요가 없다는 이야기이다. 자기 몸의 주체는 자신이 되어야 하고, 여성이 먼저 나서서 자신의 몸에 맞는 피임법을 찾는 것이 그 주체가 되는 첫걸음이다.

Even if getting pregnant is only the lot of women, as that process involves both men and women then both have a responsibility to use contraception: not just men. And you should not care about what other people think of you for being proactive and responsible about it: your body is your own, and so the first step is to find the right birth control method for you.

피임을 상대 남성에게만 맡겨두는 것이 아니라 스스로 자신의 몸에 맞는 피임법을 찾고, 성생활 역시 불안감 없이 즐기는 것이 자기 몸을 사랑하는 방법이 될 것이다.

Contraception is not the sole responsibility of men, and finding what method is most appropriate for your bodies and best able to allow you to enjoy your sex life comfortably and safely is something both partners have to do for each other (End).

( Source: cupitee )

One very mild criticism I have of the above is that, like the Korean author of the last translation I provided, Im-ji is quite positive about a new form of contraceptive pill called Yaz (야즈), but which as a commenter here has pointed out, is increasingly viewed as too dangerous by Western consumers, and is the subject of numerous lawsuits. Perhaps this information is simply not available in Korean yet?

In line with my new modus operandi, I’ll try to find that out myself this weekend…starting by asking Im-ji directly!

For reasons that will soon become clear, girl-group Kara’s (카라) latest commercial for Cob Chicken (Cob 구어조은닭) is making big waves in the Korea media at the moment. But one suspects that most male viewers in particular are missing just how ground-breaking it really is:

Yes, those are indeed shapely buttocks firmly thrust into our faces 3 seconds into the commercial. But those are to be expected, as Kara has been well-known for their “butt dance” since first performing it as part of their single “Mister” (미스터) back in August, which is playing in the background. Not only would it have been very strange not to have used it here then, but it has become something of a meme in K-pop, aptly demonstrated by this rather surreal clip of perhaps 25 female singers from various groups simultaneously performing it in a recent comedy program:

Much more surprising then, is the sudden entrance of the well-muscled male at 0:17. And no, it’s not “groundbreaking” in the sense that it’s an explicit case of male objectification: while that’s comparatively rare, it’s not exactly a first for Korea. Rather, I label it as such because not only is the first time the makers of a Korean commercial have acknowledged their objectification of women and men therein, it’s also the first in which that acknowledgment has become a central, almost satirical theme of the commercial. Consider the screenshot viewers see immediately after the half-naked man for instance:

In English, it reads: “Because the chicken is grilled, the fat is removed completely. Chicken’s young taste,” and judging by the advertisement from the Cob Chicken website below, the association between chicken meat and lithe young bodies isn’t a one-off. Moreover, although the Korean language lacks the associations the English term “meat market” has, it has a close equivalent in “물이 좋다,” or “The water is good”, and of course there are numerous instances of food terms being used for body parts. For the most recent example, consider Matt’s excellent commentary at Gusts of Popular Feeling on the invention of the term “honey thighs” (꿀벅지) , and one high-school girl’s laudable rare attempt to demonstrate how sexist and demeaning such language is.

( Source: Cob Chicken )

I acknowledge though, that a commercial objectifying both sexes is perhaps a strange choice to also include in that vein. But recall that the development of Korean Gender Studies as an academic discipline somewhat lags behind its Western counterparts (let alone in popular discourse), with the result that a Korean language search for, say, “sexist advertisements” for example, will actually provide very few Korean examples: in all seriousness, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more here than on the entire Korean-language internet. Getting the notion that objectification occurs in advertisements and in wider society out by whatever means then, I’d argue, is a very important first step towards rectifying that.

Update: For comparison, numerous examples of the sexualizing and/or gendering of food in Western advertisements are available here.

Update 2: An amusing post from seoulbeats on how appearing in chicken commercials seems to be a rite of passage for up and coming Korean stars.

(For all posts in my Korea Sociological Images series, see here)

( Source )

For all my critical analysis of Korean commercials over the years, first impressions still really last on me.

Take the following commercial for Lotte DC Plus Card (롯데 DC플러스 카드) for instance, which I frequently noticed on Yahoo Korea! last week while I was preparing this post on a rather strategically-placed soju bottle in another commercial featured there. For a long time, I thought actor Kim Ah-joong (김아중) and the male voiceover were merely saying “DC” repeatedly, albeit pronouncing it “dee-she” because that’s how it would sound if written in the Korean alphabet (which lacks a “C” or “see” sound):

But provided it’s done by attractive members of the opposite sex, then, well, I often find English mispronounced by non-native speakers to be rather cute, and I’d wager you do too. And indeed, the focus on the voices in this commercial was the deliberate intent of the advertiser, as not only is there the following amusing version in which Kim Ah-joong’s voice is placed into the mouths of others…

…but the entire thing has even been made into an extended song, downloadable from the Lotte DC Plus Card website (see here for the lyrics):

And I was considering post the commercial(s) here simply on those merits alone. But I’ve occasionally misinterpreted commercials in the past because of not double-checking them later, so I made sure to do so with these ones. And I’m very glad I did, as – as some of you will already have noticed – reading the commercials as mere mispronunciation of an English acronym is completely mistaken.

( Source: Paranzui )

Take the second commercial again: if you listen very closely, while the male voiceover is saying “DC” repeatedly, it turns out that Kim Ah-joong is actually only saying that about half the time. For instance, when the scene above comes up at 0:07, she says “bing-she-doh dee-she” (빙씨도 디씨), and, lo and behold, “bing” (빙) is the family name of the people depicted (written on the pots), “she” (씨), written in the Chinese character “氏” is much like the titles “Mr” and “Mrs” etc., albeit with the important proviso that you would never use them to refer to a superior (people’s positions, like “Teacher Kim”, “Superintendent Park” and so on are used instead), “doh” (도) means “also”, and “dee-she” means, well, “DC.” So, Kim Ah-joong is not mindlessly repeating “DC” in a Korean accent, albeit rather cutely, but instead saying “The Bings also [like/use] the DC card,” and before them, the middle-aged woman “Choon (춘) also [likes/uses] the DC card,” and so on.

This would have been more obvious to me had I seen the earlier commercials in the series:

Ultimately then, this is actually quite a clever and amusing use of the different meanings and pronunciations of  the “C” sound in both languages. And, forgive me if I’m projecting here, but I think it just goes to show how there is often a great deal more to Korean advertising than what may at first appear. Moreover, just like a little knowledge of Korean suffices to completely transform one’s opinion of these commercials, not much more is required to see Korean society in a new light also: recall how full of sexual innuendo this and this example were for instance, but in a society still usually labeled as “sexually conservative” by the English-language media.

(For all posts in the Creative Korean Advertising series, see here)

It’s one thing to be aware of the popularity of calf-reduction surgery in Korea on an abstract level, but quite another to see the results in the flesh for the first time.

Or rather, the reduction thereof. And while I’m aghast at the notion of voluntarily having one’s nerves cut and muscle removed for any cosmetic surgery procedure, in this particular case the mind simply boggles at how anybody can consider the “after” picture as an improvement.

Unfortunately though, it is neither a mistake nor a satire, but is instead from a genuine advertisement in this month’s Busan edition of Cocofun (코코펀), a free local entertainment guide available in major cities. Here is the full version:

For the record, I’m not labeling skinny calves as unattractive by definition, particularly if a woman – and it’s overwhelmingly women who undergo calf-reduction surgery – has such legs naturally; as it happens, the difficulty of finding food I wasn’t allergic to when I was young meant that my own calves probably weren’t much bigger until my mid-teens, even though I’m a man. Buffing-up in my early-20s to compensate for my own body image then, naturally I also prefer healthy and active women over sedentary thin ones today, but regardless I struggle to see how the muscle development naturally ensuing from such a lifestyle could ever be considered unattractive.

This isn’t the case in Korea and the rest of Northeast Asia however. For a good introduction as to why, I recommend this post at FeetManSeoul for starters, while some other sources, such as the following English guide to the procedure from this cosmetic surgery clinic in Seoul for instance, also mention the fact that “Asian women have shorter legs and thicker calves than Caucasian women.” But lest one is tempted to read too much into that curious comparison though, by no means do all commentators on the subject indirectly refer to some alleged Caucasian ideal, and actually even this more direct description of the procedure from the same site fails to mention it.

( Source )

However, there may also a generational difference to take into account. Take 38 year-old singer and actor Uhm Jung-hwa (엄정화) below for instance, appearing in a press conference with 29 year-old actor Han Chae-young (한채영) for their movie Are you living with the person you love? (지금 사랑하는 사람과 살고 있습니까?) in July 2007. Ironically, both are well-known for having received extensive cosmetic surgery, but as you can see, only Uhm Jung-hwa has retained her muscular legs. I find her much the more attractive for that reason, and seriously wonder how much physical exertion Han Chae-young is capable of; did I mention that calf-reduction patients have to learn how to walk again?

But while its voluntary nature may may mean that it’s too extreme of me to compare calf-reduction surgery akin to foot-binding at this point (although both do involve the physical disablement of women for the sake of a wholly artificial beauty ideal), I will go so far as to invoke Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects (1792) here. For not only did she note that women being considered “too susceptible to sensibility and too fragile to be able to think clearly” was partially the consequence of not receiving the physical education that boys did (see here also), tellingly she also wrote that women are “taught from their infancy that beauty is woman’s sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and, roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison”, implying that if young women weren’t so encouraged to focus their attention on beauty and outward accomplishments, they could achieve much more.

Points to ponder in a country where health-food is promoted to elementary school girls on the basis of allegedly improving their face-shape and making their undeveloped breasts and buttocks bigger. And yet still people wonder why I’m so negative sometimes…!

(For all posts in the Korean Sociological Images series, see here)

Pity the hapless commentator on hidden themes in advertising. Not only is he or she often accused of overanalysis, but men in particular can be labeled as positively perverted in seeing sexual symbols in otherwise inanimate objects.

Granted, sometimes a bottle is just a bottle, and Cheoum Cheoreom Cool (처음처럼 쿨), a new brand of soju, is not the only commercial to have an animated example of its product moving across the screen below it on Yahoo! Korea at the moment. But I do wonder why the bottle is tilted the way it is though, particularly as the long-held convention in Korean alcohol advertising is that bottles should always be displayed standing upright?

As it happens, that convention is still adhered to on Cheoum Cheoreom Cool’s website, but with the soju bottle springing-up in a most satisfying manner in the corner of the screen once you click on the “over 19″ button. That wasn’t the case when I wrote about its marketing campaign last month.

Naturally, I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

But I’m not against this latest twist per se, and indeed this advertisement for bokbunja (복분자) below with a similar theme still puts a smile on my face 4 months after first noticing it (see here for more like it). And yet Cheoum Cheoreom Cool’s version isn’t quite so, well, elegant, and smacks of desperation given that the campaign already so excessively focuses on female body parts. Perhaps like Lee Hyori before her, UEE (유이) isn’t bringing Lotte the increased market share anticipated?

( Source: Jinro )

Thanks to reader “JSK Hanglo” for bringing the commercial to my attention.

Update: See here for some similar phallic symbolism from the latest New Yorker.

(For all posts in my Korean Sociological Images series, see here)

( Source: Naver )

As they say, first impressions last, and my own first introduction to Korean sexual politics came with a bang when the scandal over the Baek Ji-young (백지영) sex tape erupted in late-2000. The way she was treated by the Korean media was hypocritical and shocking, and confirmed what I’d learned at university: Korea was a deeply patriarchal and sexually-conservative society.

Or at least, as the “Korean Gender Guy,”™ that’s what I’d like to pretend informed my first year in Korea. The truth is, I barely noticed at the time, being rather more concerned with getting into my Korean girlfriend’s pants. But they also say that the best way to learn a new culture is to sleep with the locals, and what I learned about sexual politics that way was no less important for being so base: the books were simply wrong about how prudish Koreans were. I’ve been poking fun at the huge gap between image and reality ever since.

But with a nod of appreciation to the advice of this regular commenter, it’s high time to move on from that extremely simplistic conception of the subject.

Just like it is misguided to think of, say, all American voters as mere “conservatives” or “liberals,” the reality is that Korean society is both profoundly sexually-liberal in some instances and sexually-conservative in others. For instance: most Koreans have sex before marriage; Korea has one of the largest prostitution industries in the world; Korean teenagers increasingly dance extremely provocatively on television; Korean women are increasingly objectified in advertisements; and, overall, censorship of sexual content in movies is rapidly easing.

( Source: RaySoda )

And yet that combination by no means implies that Korean men and women are equally able to express and enjoy their sexuality in 2009, let alone that, like almost a decade ago, a female celebrity secretly filmed while having sex with her boyfriend wouldn’t again be ostracized by the Korean media. Indeed, one can argue that to describe Korean society as simply “sexual-conservative” is merely to gloss over its profound double-standards.

One such double-standard is the need for sexually-active women to appear inexperienced and virginal to their partners, and in that vein, this survey of condom use and sexual activity in Korea – probably the most comprehensive of its kind – found that a majority of them did so to the extent that they regarded contraception as entirely men’s responsibility, as I discussed last December. Either they didn’t provide it themselves, they didn’t insist on their partners using condoms, and/or they would even feign complete ignorance of all contraceptive methods.

Again, that’s to be expected from a “sexually-conservative” society. But bear in mind the fact that love hotels are ubiquitous here, and – as that survey demonstrates – are well used. So while this particular double-standard is hardly confined to Korea, it is particularly severe in its effects on Korean women.

In light of that, the fact that rates of oral contraceptive pill usage are extremely low in Korea (3%) shouldn’t have been a surprise to me when I learned it from this recent Korean blog post, which I’ve translated below. But while I was certainly aware of the scare-tactics used – for various reasons – by Japanese medical authorities to dissuade women from using the pill there for instance, and which meant that it was only legalized as late as 1999 (see here, here and here), in hindsight perhaps I was too optimistic about Korean women’s reaction to similar tactics used here in January. So I was taken aback:

피임에 보수적인 여자들 – When it Comes to Contraception, Korean Women Are Conservative

Mr Kang, reporter: “As women are actively making advances in Korean society, so too are women becoming more open and assertive about sexual matters.”

Mr Kang: “Today, we are going to meet Ms. Kim, a cool, forward-thinking woman with free and open attitudes to love.”

Ms Kim, caption: “I have 900 intimate male-friends…but that’s what happens if you’re as pretty as I. It’s not a crime!”

Mr Kang: “I will ask about modern women’s opinions on sex and love…Nice to meet you Ms Kim. Ms Kim, I heard that you have very liberal and open attitudes to love. Is that true?”

Ms Kim: ” Yes. I don’t care about men that leave me, and I don’t say no to men that approach me…I’m so cool!”

Mr Kang: “Since you are old enough, I assume that you have sex with your boyfriends. Do you take the initiative and/or insist on using contraception?”

Ms Kim: “Contraception? Surely that is men’s responsibility, yes?”

Mr Kang (gray text): “I’m surprised that you’re so conservative.”

Ms. Kim (gray text): “It is totally men’s responsibility!”

Granted, a bizarre cartoon, and probably one that detracts from rather than evinces the following points made by the blogger:

이전보다 자유로와진 미혼남녀의 성생활이나 성 담론에 비해 아직도 피임에 대한 인식은 무척 보수적이죠. 게다가 아직까지 수많은 여성들은 ‘피임=남자의 책임’이라는 구시대적 사고방식을 가지고 있는 듯 합니다. 한국 여성 피임 인식 조사에 따르면, 여성의 60%는 성관계 시 피임을 하지 않는 것으로 나타났는데 이는 ‘설마~’와 ‘막연함’ 때문이라고 합니다.

“Compared to the past, people are much more sexually active these days, and talk about sexual matters much more openly. But they are still surprisingly conservative when it comes to using contraception. In particular, many women stick to the traditional line that it is entirely men’s responsibility. According to a survey by the WHO, 60% of Korean women don’t use any contraception at all, maintaining an “it won’t happen to me” attitude.”

물론, 남자에게도 책임은 있겠지만 여성들 역시 능동적일 필요가 있다고 보는데요, 통계에 따르면 남자들의 피임 방식인 “CONDOM”은 피임에 성공할 확률이 85%에 지나지 않는다고 합니다. 반면에 여성들이 준비할 수 있는 ‘먹는 피임약’인 경우, 성공 확률이 무려 99%에 이른다고 하네요.

“Of course men also have a responsibility to use contraception, but it seems that women are not fulfilling theirs. According to statistics, whereas condoms are 85% effective in preventing pregnancy, the use of the oral contraceptive pill is done entirely by women and is as much as 99% effective.”

더치페이의 나라 네덜란드에서는 피임에 대해서도 서로를 배려하기 위해 CONDOM과 피임약을 모두 사용하는 이른바 ‘더치피임’이 널리 퍼지고 있다고 합니다. 또한 요즘 나오는 먹는 피임약(야즈)은 피임 뿐만 아니라 여드름 및 월경전불쾌장애(심한 형태의 월경전 증후군)에도 치료 효과를 인정받았다고 하니 여성 스스로를 위해서라도 꼭 한번 고려해볼 수 있길 바랍니다.

“In the Netherlands, when it comes to contraception people combine condoms with the use of the pill in order to be safer, and this is known as “Dutch [Style] Contraception.” In addition, a  new form of the pill called “Yaz” is coming onto the market, which combines a contraceptive function with helping to prevent skin problems and PMT. Women should consider this new product as an option.”

And I’m afraid that that is all, although it attracted a great many commenters, most of whom agree that contraception is also women’s responsibility. But they take issue with the blogger’s description of women that don’t use the pill as “conservative,” citing concerns about side-effects, to which my response would be to direct them to this comment.

Meanwhile, if you haven’t already read my earlier post on condom use and rates of sexual activity in Korea then I strongly recommend you do so to place this new information in context, and you may also be interested in the recent appointment of a minor Korean-American celebrity being named “goodwill ambassador for the Korean Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to promote a campaign teaching young Korean women about sex and reduce abortions.” This has many positives of course, but I’d echo Brian in Jeollanam-do’s concerns that this may be “a product of, and will contribute to the perpetuation of, the belief that Americans and Westerners alone can be open about sex,” to which I’d add the stereotype that Westerners and especially Caucasians are overall much “more sexual” than Koreans. Finally, for a very frank discussion from the front-line as it were (an American woman dating Korean men), make sure to check out Doing it Korean Style!

Update: Apologies for not mentioning Dating in Korea also.

( Source: Hera )

This probably sounds rather hypocritical of me in light of many recent posts on photoshopping, but it’s difficult not to admire Hera’s (헤라) latest advertisements with Kim Tae-hee (김태희) and Jang Dong-gun (장동건). And particularly if you also happen to pass by 2-meter high versions on a bus going to and from work everyday, at which scale even the most narcissistic of commuters often feels compelled to stop texting for a moment to take a closer look. See here for a taste, with apologies for not finding the same for Jang Dong-gun.

( Source: Hera )

Granted, I can’t usually say the same about cosmetics commercials, which usually leave me feeling rather cold. But for a change, I rather like this one, albeit primarily because of the music (can any fellow Trance fans help me identify it? It sounds familiar):

And here’s one with Jang Dong-gun for comparison. I’ll be writing much more on recent shifts in cosmetics advertising to men soon, but a common theme of many articles on the subject is that in fact it is usually women that buy cosmetics for their partners, and I’ve also noted how cosmetic companies that only just beginning to sell products to men seem to find it difficult to deviate from the formula used for women. This possibly explains why I find this one so unmoving then:

Regardless, normally I wouldn’t have chosen to blog about aesthetically-pleasing cosmetics advertisements, lest I never stop. But the opportunity arose when no less then ten people sent me the following commercial in the last two weeks, all noting my liking of this sort of thing, and asking me to help explain why they found it so warm and compelling. It seemed a good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone:

But to be precise, ten men sent it to me, and I post this to ask other readers what they think of it. Especially women, as I wonder if our attraction to the commercial is merely an echo of our heterosexual attraction to the woman featured? I suspect not though, as I find this longer, completely different version of the commercial as inane as I usually find women’s cosmetics commercials:

It’s probably more the controlled and warm tone of the woman’s voice then, which is very soothing. It belongs to actress Han Hyo-joo (한효주), whom I recently wrote about regarding a separate commercial of hers here, and the Sum37 (숨37) brand she is promoting is produced by LG through its “Household and Health Care” division; she recently signed a year-long contract with them.

Unfortunately there is little more I can tell you about the commercial other than that, as online Korean articles on advertisements tend to be rather vacuous, and since the demise of Korea Ad Times (코리아애드타임즈) back in March there is only one national magazine devoted to advertising in Korea, IM AD (아이엠애드), and that in turn devoted exclusively to online advertising. I was able to find the following though, and will happily translate it if anyone requests:

( Source: jhsshy )

Apologies for writing such a post without doing so already, rather uncharacteristic of me, but with 32 teaching hours a week and two young children then I have to be very selective about what I use for Korean study these days. Meanwhile, for screenshots of the commercial see here, and if you’ve read this far then presumably you’ll enjoy these accompanying advertisements also:

( Source: Zziixx )

( Source: Brkimb )

It would be nice to see more cosmetic commercials like it, although it goes without saying that is overwhelmingly women that buy themselves cosmetics rather than their male partners passing them on, so again I’d be particularly grateful for women’s opinions of it. But of course men’s also, as I and the ten readers who sent me the commercial are rather biased!

That advertisements featuring Girl’s Generation (소녀시대) are invariably photoshopped isn’t news of course, and these ones are hardly the most egregious examples either. But in a rare positive step, the before and after pictures for their latest advertisements for the LG Black Label Series Chocolate phone are currently featured on the front page of the “Enter Holic” or “Entertainmentholic” (엔터홀릭) section of the Korean MSN homepage, and so will have been the first thing many people saw when they opened Windows Live Messenger this morning.

Not to imply that most Koreans aren’t aware of photoshopping in advertisements of course. But still, anything that fosters further discussion of that is to be encouraged.

( Source: goagsu4 )

Or at least, that was my first impression. Looking more closely though, in fact it was the before images that were used in the advertisements.  Unfortunately there is no information about who created the photoshopped images, or why, but with the statement “Wow! Very subtle changes make a big difference” (아주 미묘한 차이가 큰 차이를 만드는구놔), he or she implies that the altered images are to be preferred.

Sigh.

As pointed out by Gwen at Sociological Images, pretty and/or sexually-available women are often presented as the faces of political viewpoints or causes, presumably to make them more popular among heterosexual men. One feels somewhat manipulative with the choice of the following commercial featuring the photogenic girl band Girls’ Generation (소녀시대) as a subject of examination here then, let alone with those of other recent topics on the blog, but I’d be hard-pressed to find something else which demonstrates quite so many aspects of contemporary Korean gender issues in a mere 15 seconds. It’s really quite bizarre.

And in more ways than one: the more I watch it, the more unnatural, almost disturbing I find this commercial, and I’m not being facetious when I say that that it may make you squirm in your seat a little:

An exaggeration? If you think so, then you’re in good company, for I’ve shown the commercial to a number of my students this week to elicit their own first impressions and opinions of it, only to receive blank looks from most. But while I don’t mean to sound patronizing, one might surmise that in their case that is because most of their adult lives have been spent in an environment in which both doumi (도우미) or female “assistants” and scantily-clad “narrator models” (나레이터 머델) have become ubiquitous, and gender issues as an academic discipline still somewhat lagging its development in Western countries, let alone as a subject of popular discourse. So it’s natural that – yes – the mini-shorts in particular wouldn’t have triggered the same reaction that they would have in most Western viewers. Or to put it more simply, while your average Western viewer may well disagree that the advertisement is sexist, he or she is probably more likely to be aware of why others might think so.

Readers may well acknowledge the tendency towards exhibitionism and objectification inherent to the use of mini-shorts in advertising though, and yet still that feel my description of this particular commercial is an exaggeration. Moreover, members of Girls’ Generation are actually notorious for wearing them (as they are of jeans that are several sizes too small), and in so doing have played no small part in popularizing them among young Korean women this summer, albeit very much building on the preexisting popularity of mini-skirts in the process. So it may seem misguided, almost disingenuous of me to single out this commercial in this regard.

( Source: Naver )

But then, I’m not. Forgive me for acknowledging my own male gaze here (I’ll try to keep it to a minimum), but not only do I happen to like mini-shorts on women, I also find most members of Girl’s Generation sexually attractive too, so by no means am I categorically against the use of either by advertisers. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t still much that is objectionable about this commercial though: the mini-shorts were merely a good starting-point because I feel confident that that’s where the majority of readers literally did start, and expected that I would also. But let’s move on from those by considering them as parts of entire outfits rather than in isolation.

Looked at from that perspective, what they are wearing strikes me as much more reminiscent of the hypersexual representations of women and girls prevailing in Japanese manga more than anything that you’d find ever in real life. Alternatively, perhaps women’s Vaudeville costumes of the 1880s to 1930s would be more appropriate, and I think it’s telling that the most similar costume I could find via a Google Image search was this one from aSexyCostume.com. True, this is the media we’re talking about, to which the public standards of fashion don’t (and usually shouldn’t) apply. But having established their novelty and their suggestiveness, what purposes do such outfits serve?

Well, consider what impression the commercial would have given if the men in it had also been wearing mini-shorts, assuming that they also had legs that the opposite sex would find attractive (well-muscled ones say). Intellectually, this probably sounds perfectly fine, but I suspect that if we were all to actually see such a commercial, that regardless of our feminist beliefs we’d probably find the result somewhat comical.

And yet it would not necessarily be a betrayal of those beliefs to do so: partially because, even in the US, “shorts suits” are still only on the fringes of respectability, and hence we’re unused to them, but primarily because men and women use different criteria for judging sexual attractiveness, so it’s to be expected that men often look absurd in similar clothes and poses to what advertisers place women in. On top of that, recall that this is a commercial for a bank, so something akin to a curious blend of a traditional Vaudeville show and the Chippendales wouldn’t exactly have conveyed the level-headiness consumers desire in such an institution.

But then, does just having the women in mini-shorts either? Well, that’s the strange thing: in this particular commercial, it does. Let me explain, using what is actually being said in the commercial to do so:

First, the text in blue box: “끝없이 ‘고객만족’을 생각하는 카드”.

“The card that unceasingly thinks about customer satisfaction”.

Then what the men are saying while that is visible: “생각, 생각, 생각, 생각”.

“Think, think, think, think.”

Next Girls’ Generation, dancing with their shoulders while sitting on a bench: “어떡하면, 원하는걸, 다 이뤄줄수 있으까?”.

“How shall [the card] achieve everything [the customer] wishes?”.

( Source: Paranzui )

Then the men again, while the girls are do their leggy dance, then stand in a line with the men and supposedly sing along with them (but we only hear the men’s voices): “손잡고 힘을 모아 다 함께 생각 생각”.

“Let’s cooperate [with the customer] and collect our energy together and think about all that”.

Finally in the voiceover, with the men sitting in contemplative poses and the girls standing behind them clapping : “카드의 길을 생각하다”.

“What is a card’s purpose? Let’s think about that”.

With this text in the blue box above them: “끝없는 제휴혜택으로 더 큰 고객만족을”.

“The card that can be used anywhere in order to increase customer satisfaction!”.

Easy to miss on a single viewing, it emerges that it is only the men that do the thinking in this commercial, and by default, for the bank also. Yes, really: even when they all say “How shall [the card] achieve everything [the customer] wishes?,” if you look closely at roughly 0:08 into the commercial when the girls actually finish saying that (see above), they clearly turn to the men for an answer. Rest assured then, that if you invest your money in this bank, that it will be in the hands of those that take your concerns very seriously. They just won’t be women, that’s all.

Again, exaggeration? Hardly. Consider the facts: according to a recent report in the Korea Times, there are no female CEOs in the entire financial industry here; there are only 2 women out of a total of 220 team managers in the Financial Supervisory Service (and no executives); there are no women with either position in the Bank of Korea. Moreover, one anonymous (male) government official in finance argued that this is somehow justified by “the country’s financial bureaucrats [having] been overwhelmed with too “serious tasks” to pay attention to gender equality” (but referring to the period since the early 1960’s, not just recent events), and it’s telling that even Rep. Lee Sung-nam (이성남) of the Democratic Party, a woman and former worker at the FSS, feels that women’s weak point in finance is their “competitive edge.”

Granted, given that Korea has one of the lowest women’s workforce participation rates in the OECD, and that Korea has a surprisingly low “Gender Empowerment Measure” relative to its level of development, which is based on “factors such as the number of female legislators, the percentage of women in senior official and managerial positions, the percentage of women in professional and technical positions, and the income differential between men and women,” then it might seem unfair to single out the financial sector for criticism in this regard. But then if I’d wanted to highlight the lack of women there in particular, then I couldn’t have selected a better commercial to illustrate why that might be so.

Nor for explaining “function ranking” either, a common sexist motif in advertisements. A quick summary:

Activities can also be expressive and symbolic – who is shown doing what in the image?  For example which gender is most likely to shown caring for children? Very commonly when persons in the image have functions, these functions are ranked, with the male carrying out the senior functions, the female the junior functions.  Men act, and women help men act.  Males are more likely to be shown in the executive or leadership role, with females in the supportive, assistant, or decorative accessory role (source).

That and other motifs were first outlined by the late sociologist Erving Goffman in his 1979 work Gender Advertisements, and which is still very much the framework by which sociologists study how gender roles are perpetuated in advertising; I offer it in the remainder of this post for those of you interested in a more systematic way of analyzing the commercial, and advertising in general. For instance, consider how poignant the following sounds in light of all the above:

In our society where a man and a woman collaborate face to face in an undertaking, the man – it would seem – is likely to perform the executive role, providing only that one can be fashioned. This arrangement seems widely represented in advertisements, in part, no doubt, to facilitate interpretability at a glance (p.32).

And the next also, albeit if we reverse the sexes and the locations:

….Which raises the questions of how males are pictured when in the domains of the traditional authority and competence of females – the kitchen, the nursery, and the living room when it is being cleaned. One answer, borrowed from life and possibly underrepresented, is to picture the male engaged in no contributing role at all, in this way avoiding either subordination or contamination with a “female” task (p.36).

Another answer, I think, it so present the man as ludicrous or childlike, unrealistically so, as if perhaps in making him candidly unreal the competency image of real makes could be preserved (p. 36).

And to introduce the next relevant motif, consider how a similarly strong gender binary is created by the following advertisement I came across last November, which also happened to be for a bank:

Here, it is largely the “relative sizes” of the sexes that makes it so problematic. See here for an in-depth discussion of this motif, but in sum:

…when females and males are shown together, males are mostly shown as taller than females, even though if females and males were randomly paired together, in one in six pairs the woman would be taller.  However the tall female with the short male displays a relationship in which the female has power, according to conventional indicative codes, and so the reverse is preferred, since the cultural ideal is the the male “should wear the pants”.  Therefore the most common image is the taller male, and the shorter female. Exceptions occur where the male is weakened by sickness or old age, or is of lower social status (such as a servant) than the female. Height routinely symbolizes social rank (source).

In light of this, one might point out that in opening image of the Shinhan Bank commercial the men and women are actually the same size – indeed, hilariously so because in fact many of the women are standing on wooden blocks – but I argue that this just makes the difference in their outfits all the more glaring.

Finally, the commercial doesn’t quite render irrelevant one of Goffman’s other motifs, that entitled “Ritualization of Subordination,” but it certainly qualifies it in the Korean context, as while he:

…read that lying or sitting conveys a sense of sexual availability and lowering oneself physically indicates deference or admittance of inferiority.

And which made sense given his full arguments and examples, as Nam Kyoungtae, Lee, Guiohk & Hwang, Jang-Sunin in their 2007 paper “Gender Role Stereotypes Depicted by Western and Korean Advertising Models in Korean Adolescent Girls’ Magazines“ (downloadable here) explain, this:

…may not be an accurate interpretation of Korean advertising. In a Korean culture which is accustomed to sitting on the floor, a seated person might have a higher status than people who are standing nearby because he takes a more relaxed and comfortable position.

True, the men posed at 0:12 on the right (source) are hardly “relaxed and comfortable,” but they’re easily of a more higher status than the women clapping behind them. Against that interpretation, there is the fact that in Korea, one often claps oneself or one’s group for achieving some feat, but there is little else in the commercial to suggest that the women are any more than passive members of the team that is thinking about “a card’s purpose” and so on. Or indeed, that overall, that any enhancement in the bank’s reputation gained by the commercial isn’t very much at the expense of women’s as a whole.

…And upon writing that note, my original intention was to move on to the 3 or 4 other “aspects of contemporary Korean gender issues” that I felt that the commercial demonstrated, but I’ll wisely stop there, hopefully having providing readers a new means by which to critically look at commercials and advertisements in the process, and not just Korean ones. But by all means feel free to point out anything you feel that I missed, or alternatively overemphasized: with having watched the commercial at least 50 times now, and now a raging flu to boot, then I concede that I may well have started missing the forest for the trees quite some time ago now!

( Source: Naver)

Update: See here for another recent commercial from Shinhan Bank with just the men for comparison.

(For all posts in my “Korean Sociological Images” series, see here)

( Source: Korea Times )

An advertisement from OliveTV that caught my eye today. Ironically, far from delivering its intended message, it serves better as a subtle indictment of it.

Presumably the logic is that through watching and following the advice of the channel’s plethora of fashion and cosmetic shows, one can transform one’s appearance, much like the uncharacteristically drab-looking Shin Min-a (신민아) on the left supposedly did. This is rather clearer in the following commercial, and which perhaps OliveTV ought to have restricted itself to, as apparently the results are only temporary!

But it was more the difference between real life and the photoshopped image that first came to mind personally, only spoiled by the (typical) absence of an “a” and a question mark included in the text. Indeed, coming from any other source, I might normally have assumed that that was the deliberate intention, but unfortunately that is very unlikely here. It is merely a badly-executed ad.

If it piques your interest in the use of photoshop in advertising though, then please check out my “Korean Photoshop Disasters” series, and you may also like this recent New York Times report on moves by French and British lawmakers to force all media companies to disclose the use of digital alteration in images (hat tip to Illusionists). Alternatively, for those of you more interested in the artistic side of things (and on the theme of juxtapositions in particular), then you may like the some of the images in this post.

Finally, if you can appreciate the notion that the image on the right is an impossible ideal for the real Shin Min-a or any other woman to live up to, and yet has strong influences on their body ideals, behavior, confidence, and consumption patterns nevertheless, then like me you may find “hyperreality” a useful and intriguing concept with which to study advertising. But please don’t be put off by the obscure terminology: see here for a good overall guide, and here, here, here and here for some examples and applications of it to the Korean context.

( Source: Unknown)

In that vein, let me leave you with the thought that perhaps – paraphrasing Umberto Eco – the advertisement is an imitation of the original that we’re not only able to better enjoy, but also one we can do so with “the conviction that imitation has reached its apex and afterwards reality will always be inferior to it”? Granted, Eco was discussing a wholly different topic, but the sentiment seems fitting.