Define “Big,” and Define “Butts” (Plus a Barrage of Amusing Youtube Videos)

The other day, while I was searching for the video “Soju Mama” in a recent post, I ran across this commercial: The fact they used this song, and this celebrity, in this commercial, suggests one of these two possibilities: They figured most people don’t know what “I like big butts” means. Which is maybe plausible, since I find most Koreans who aren’t really high-level in English translate whichever Korean word indicates both (is it 엉덩이? That’s the one I learned first and remembered because I heard it so often, so I assume it’s the most common) as “hip” to indicate …

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Expatriates and Creative Bitching

I’ve often got this song on a loop in my MP3 these days when I ride the subways: Before you read the following, seriously, listen to this song, check out the lyrics, of which the following passage grabbbed me (hard, by wrist) when I first heard it: I understand the culture’s Of a different kind, But here [the] word celebration Just doesn’t come to mind! This resonates with me in the context of the story the song tells: a band that describes itself, in its early days, as “a bunch of immigrants jamming” who met at “a Russian wedding in …

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I’m in a Meeting

I didn’t write that last post at 9:00am today, but rather last night. Scheduling posts to be published at a later date is cool. Neat, and it’s new to me — I couldn’t do cron jobs before in WordPress on my webhost’s space. I love it! And yes, by the time this gets published, I’ll really be in some kind of orientation meeting. I don’t know whether any of it is going to be in English, or how much point there is to me being there. (Most of the other new profs are bound to be Korean, and those who …

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Miss Yum and Mr. Bum Suck

Okay, okay, I know, it’s a cheap joke, and one all too common on cynical expat blogs. But please, wait, wait, hear me out! Sometimes you really do end up with students in your class, or friends you meet in other ways, who have these names that are just, well… they’re things you can’t help but grin at, because you’re an Anglophone and because people should just not be named that sort of thing. Like Miss Yum. Okay, really, it was Miss Yeom, but it was pronounced yum, as in, what people say when they see food they want to …

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Workshops for You (If You’re Anything Like Me)

Here I am, fresh back from Sobaeksan (writeup coming soon on the SOAO workshop, I promise!), and already I’m looking for more astronomy immersion. (Though, this time, in English, so I can understand more of it!) Launch Pad is, as of yesterday (well, to me, as it’s the 16th of February here and now) looking for applicants. Twelve lucky people — writers, whether of science, SF, film scripts, or other things — will be selected to get a crash course on astronomy out in Laramie, Wyoming. It’s an excellent opportunity. Find out more, and apply, at the Launch Pad website. …

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No Tokyo For You! (Er, Meaning Me…)

A couple of factors combined to make the potential trip to Tokyo that I mentioned here unworkable. (Not the least, a great deal of uncertainty until, well, this morning about whether I’d need this or that or the other thing to get the code number I’m supposed to get in order to do my visa run.) Now I have stuff going on this week, stuff to get done, people to see and places to be — heh, even an orientation tomorrow, which will probably be several hours of incomprehensibility to whatever foreign profs actually make it there — so the …

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Old Foreign TV Shows in Korea

Last week, I was coming home from Seoul by taxi, because I’d missed the last train, and I happened to hear a series of old TV show themes. From the commentary — what little of it I could understand — it was a kind of late-night retrospective on (American) TV shows that had aired back in the old days of Korean broadcasting, before Korean-made media had expanded to the point where it could dominate the Korean airwaves. It was pretty interesting, and the cabbie and I chatted a little about the shows, as each theme played. Some of the ones …

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SOAO Workshop 2009 Pictures Up

This entry is part 19 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

There’s lots of snowy ones, and some not-so-great photos, but the majority of the shots I’ll be posting are now viewable here. I’ll add some descriptions when I get time, and write up the experience here soon. Here are a couple of pics, with a few more in the extended post…

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Databased & V-Day

Well, a friend sent me a link for the The Ultimate Guide to Modern Writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy, which was compiled by Avi Abrams and explained in this post at Dark Roasted Beans. I was shocked to find myself in it. Shocked in the sense of being hit by a wave of, “Oh, crap, I need to get some more stories submitted out there soon!” The semester looms, and I have tons to do before then. Ah well, for now, I’ve other things to take care of. But I was chuffed to know I warranted entry into a …

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