Category: KOREA

Location, Location, Relocation…

gordsellar2 Comments

So, one thing that surprised people was our seemingly sudden move back to Korea. Not just because people were surprised that we moved so suddenly, but also because we chose to come back to Korea specifically. Like any major decision in life, it’s a complex mix of things, some of which I won’t talk about here, but I thought I’d say a little about it anyway. For one thing, life on tourist visas with short-term health insurance policies (I can only get six months at a time these days) was growing increasingly untenable. (My health’s fine, I’ve actually lost plenty of weight and …

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(non-Platonic!) d14 of Korean Hard-Partying

gordsellar9 Comments

Update (17 Nov. 2014): You, too, can enjoy this wonderful die… if you use an Android device and can read Korean, anyway, or if you visit Insadong (and can read hanja). See the update at the end of the post for more details. Original Post: As promised the other day: the Korean d14 from the Shilla Dynasty, used for drinking games. (Yeah, given the popularity even now of group drinking games in South Korea, that’s hardly a surprise.) But the d14 is unusual: it’s a rather bizarre polyhedral die called the 주령구 (Juryeonggu), which I first ran across during a visit to the Anapji palace in …

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Dance Recital Poster Goes Viral. Cue Self-Righteous Expat Hand-Wringing

gordsellar4 Comments

Taehoon Lee is doing a useful service on Korea Observer that Robert Koehler used to perform over on The Marmot’s Hole, back when he started out: translating and posting Korean news items that don’t make it into the English-language news in Korea. But man, sometimes the reactions his postings get are just stupid and wrong-headed, and it’s almost always self-righteous expats who are eager to: critique the hell out of everything in Korea, and spew outraged critique all over Facebook Here’s an example, a poster for a dance recital at Chonbuk National University that went viral online. Lee posted about it …

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A Side Order of Context

gordsellar6 Comments

  Something I find fascinating is how people talk and talk and talk about diversity as if it only means different races, and not different cultures–that different cultures and the frame of reference in which they operate ought to be transparent to anyone without the slightest bit of effort or context. For example, the above image has apparently started doing the rounds on Facebook… at least, I assume so. I’m not tracking the trends, but a friend shared it. Is it racism captured in a nutshell? I don’t think so… but I’m guessing a lot of Westerners would. Don’t get me wrong. I’m …

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