Category: KOREA

Anti-English Spectrum vs. the Asiatic Exclusion League

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For those who think that the Anti-English Spectrum fanatics are bad, well, I agree. I personally think they’re a significant part of the reason why Korean society, which used to be pretty positive towards Westerners on a one-on-one level, has gotten increasingly hostile with every passing year I’ve spent here. (And yes, I’ll stand by that statement, in terms of my subjective experience, though I’ll also admit some of that has to do with my neighborhood and personal disenchantment.) I’d also say it’s part of the reason a video like this one (yes, it’s the MBC “Shocking Truth About Relationships With Foreigners” …

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Korean “Disaster” Films: 연가시 / Deranged

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This entry is part 56 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

I guess I blinked a week or two ago, as I missed Cabin in the Woods’ very brief release in Korea. This suggests it was a probably a good film, since good films here are rarely shown more than a week. Resignedly, Miss Jiwaku and I schlepped it down to the local cinema to watch 연가시 (apparently known in English as Deranged, which is not the best title choice, but then, it’s not the best movie so I don’t think the foreign title’s a problem). Deranged is, just barely, Korean science fiction, so I figured I’d give it a review here. In …

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Not a Good Sign

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When, in the course of the first ten pages of a novel, the characters mostly talk about visiting prostitutes… well, that doesn’t really bode well for the rest of the novel. But it’s one of the few fiction books I’ve run across that discusses Korea from a foreign point of view, and it’s even the first of a series. Five points to anyone who’s read (and can name) what book I’m talking about. Ten points to anyone who can tell me whether it’s actually worth slogging through, or whether all that blather about visiting prostitutes actually adds up to anything …

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The Wow! Moment and Teachers’ Responsibility

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Creative Writing teachers sometimes — not very often, but sometimes — experience a Wow! moment, when they see student work of a caliber that is simply way beyond the majority of the class… a student whom they feel moved to encourage to keep writing, in some capacity or other. Or at least, a student whose talent and hard work deserves recognition. That Wow! moment is even more powerful when you’re teaching Creative Writing in a foreign language. I just finished grading my last pile for the semester — aside, perhaps, from a couple of late videos submitted to Youtube — …

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Heatstroke (Not the Music)

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No, not the piano piece I composed as an undergrad, when I didn’t know how to write music for piano. I mean actual heatstroke. I’m probably not heatstricken right now, but I sure felt like I was in the very early stages of it this afternoon: I was headachey and hot and needed to sit somewhere cool and where I went to buy water there was no cold water, and and and… (Hence, this rambling post. Though, also, I am testing whether my Twitter account is going to repost with the right image from now on.) But we finally found …

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