Tag: KOREA

I’m’na Teach Yo Ass, and Yeah, You Welcome…

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Friday last week was Teacher’s Day, but the day always takes me by surprise. Actually, it would have taken me by surprise anyway — my students sprung the biggest ambush on Thursday. We were in my office, setting up for a video shoot for that class of mine that’s making a mockumentary about an English cult operating in Korea (yes, a metaphor for the hakwon system and English-mania in general) and suddenly a pack of students I’d never met — freshmen, I guess — burst into the room with a chocolate cake and exploded into song. If you don’t teach …

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I’ve Got You Under My Korean-English Dictionary

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A lot of Westerners I know balk at the way Korean high schools regulate all kinds of things in their students’ lives — hairstyle and coloring, an absence of piercings, and so on are all required at most high schools. Kids with hair that is too long risk having their hair cut on the spot by some teachers, and even corporal punishment. That’s right, a boy can get a whupping, because his hair is too long. A girl can if she’s suspected of dyeing it. (Heaven help those who are born with brown hair.) But what kills me is when …

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Found! Daily Pillbox

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A while ago when I first started using hypertension meds, I went shopping for a “daily pillbox” — you know, those plastic thingies with a compartment for each day of the week, into which you can put the day’s pills so you don’t forget to take them. I searched for the damned thing, but the three or four pharmacies I tried all had the same answer: “Nope, never heard of that.” Finally, I just figured it was not something I could buy in Korea, and I’d have to just wait until I got to North America to buy one. (Or, …

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Muddlings Both Helpful and Not-So-Helpful

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First, the not-so-helpful: It’s amazing what happens when someone really, really thinks that, say, “traditional” means “good.” For example (and yes, this is a paraphrase): After reading the essay, I think that we can’t say Japanese radio in Korea was good for Korea. Yes, it allowed us to create a popular music of our own, at a time when intellectuals were insisting that traditional (court) music was the only “pure” Korean music. But since that music was influenced by Japanese pop music of the time, we can’t really say it was a way of resisting Japan. But since it had …

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“SF in South Korea Today” — Article Live

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This entry is part 25 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

For those following my on-and-off series on SF in South Korea, I just got an email from Jetse de Vries that my article summing up my recent gleanings on the topic, and also including a certin amount of the information I got from an “interview” I had with Jeong So-Yeon at Sobaeksan, has gone live at Shine Anthology’s blog. You can see it here.

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Korea Society Talk on Robo Taekwon V

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This entry is part 24 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

Plenty of SF readers who come through here aren’t necessarily interested in Korean history and culture in general, so it’s unlikely they’d be listeners to the Korea Society Podcast. However, for those who have an interest in global SF and pop culture, there’s a podcast you might want to check out over there. It’s a recording of a talk given way back in February 2008 by Aaron Han Joon Magnan-Park, a prof at Notre Dame. The talk is titled “Our Toys, Our Selves: Robot Taekwon V and South Korean Identity.” (That’s a direct link to the MP3, so if you …

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No Surprise

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This entry is part 23 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

It comes as no surprise to me to hear (as I have heard tonight) that one of the most queer-friendly sites in the Korean internet is a site hosted by a major Korean SF-author. Not because I think there’s a link between SF and alternative sexualities (though this author has addressed that set of issues in fictional form in the past) but because — howsoever certain authors may seem to contradict this notion (here’s a response) — in my experience, and for those people who are likely to be thinking individuals, SF simply accustoms them to thinking about the world …

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Got a Kick Out Of…

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A few things I got a kick out of in the last few days: Seeing a drunken old man jogging in place on the express commuter train out of Seoul. He jogged for ten or fifteen minutes, stopped, rolled his head around for a while, then jogged some more. I seemed to be the only person taking any notice at all of his performance. It was amusing. Seeing my name on a few of the “Here’s who I nominated!” lists for the Hugos and Campbell Award. I didn’t see a lot of these, but I saw a few, which is …

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Worthwhile Stuff For Your Ears and Eyes

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Here is some worthwhile stuff to check out, while it’s at the front of my mind: Ears First, a couple of excellent stories in podcast form, by my pals from Clarion West: Pesudopod‘s rendition of the very dark story “The Greatest Adventure of All” by Ian McHugh Beneath Ceaseless Skies‘ rendition of Tina Connolly’s fantasy “The God-Death of Halla” (and other excellent stories are available on the same page) Eyes A short article giving even more context to the context I provided for my story “Cai and Her Ten Thousand Husbands” has been posted over at his excellent blog Gusts …

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Dealing with Scammers: Memes and Means

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There’s a new meme on Facebook, the Name Game. Well, I don’t know how new it really is, but I hadn’t seen it until this morning. It goes like this: you follow the instructions and generate a bunch of “names” for yourself: Replace my answers with yours and tag as many people as you want (but don’t forget to tag me!) 1. Agent-name (the second one of your fist names and the street you live in) – 2. Moviestar-name (grandparent from your father’s side and your favourite candy) – 3. Rapstar-name (first letter of your first name and 3-5 first …

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