Tag: KOREA

“Soybean Paste Girls” as a Barometer of, or Catalyst of, Consumerization of Korean Society?

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I have a cold, so I’m keeping this relatively brief; hopefully it will also be relatively coherent. I was thinking in EMart the other day. (E-Mart, for those who aren’t in Korea, is the big grocery chain here.) Lime and I had just been in a restaurant, and the food had some to the table, well, er, unacceptably cold. I complained, and the server’s first reaction was to tell me, “No, it’s supposed to be a little cold.” To which I responded, “Uh, no, it’s not.” With an implied, Yes, it’s Western food, and yes, I do know what the …

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Bruce Sterling at Lift 2008, Jeju

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I thought about going to the Lift conference in Jeju, just because Bruce Sterling was talking there. I didn’t get around to it, but thanks to a post by Florence Chee, I was made aware of the online video of his talk. For anyone interested in Korea, the future, and/or SF, it’s worth checking out, since Bruce Sterling is a major SF author and futurist, and since it’s all about Korea. Unfortunately, I think Bruce skipped the likeliest solution to the problems he outlines early on in his talk: physical restraint. I suspect that the North Korean borders will become …

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How Candlegirl and V Took on 2MB

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This entry is part 17 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

It feels so long ago, but I still think it’s worth a look back: My article on the SFnal side of the anti-2MB protests that rocked Seoul this past summer, titled “How Candle Girl and V Took on 2MB”, is now up at the excellent Clarkesworld. It touches on the political reception and adaptation of foreign SF, techno-protest culture, Korean politics and food-culture, and more. Not quite something for everyone, but lots of stuff swirling around the nexus there. The ending is a bit, well, dated — I wrote it back in August, and it sounds like the protests just …

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More SF Goodness, Including a Bunch of Korean SF in Translation…

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This entry is part 16 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

I’m thinking I should start a reference page for all the Korean-SF goodness I’ve been coming across, and just link my post series from there. For those living in Seoul and interested in seeing SF films with other SF enthusiasts, editor/critic/translator Park Sang-Jun has teamed up with the proprietor of a newly-relocated cinema in Shinchon to put together Cinema Odyssey an SF & Fantasy film club that will meet periodically to view screenings of SF films. (That link is the Naver cafe, so you need to be logged into Naver to access it.) I met with Park on Friday just …

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Done, Fun, Thinking Some

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This entry is part 15 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

Aigo! It was a week ago tomorrow that I presented my paper at the 4th International Congress of Korean Studies. The experience was my first — I’d never presented anything at any sort of conference before — but I was told that nobody could have guessed it. I suppose being a windbag has its benefits, but people (the English-speaking audience members, at any rate) seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say. No evisceration, no dismemberment, just a couple of questions for which there was no time to offer answers, because I was on a panel that was way …

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Got a Copy?

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UPDATE: I have a couple of copies coming in the post from the KH — thanks Matt — but if you have a clipping and you were saving it for me, don’t chuck it. I’ll take it from you next time we meet. Thanks! By the way, though I mentioned my essay in the Korea Herald yesterday, I didn’t manage to get a copy of the paper. (I had no chance to get off campus.) If anyone has a copy, I wouldn’t mind having a couple of copies of the clipping. If you have it, please do email me or …

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The Irony of the Universe

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So today, my essay on “Fending off Discontentment” is in the Korea Herald. It’s part three of a discussion that started on Tuesday here, and continued on Wednesday here. You can also read the essay online here. Roboseyo has posted a bunch of links to the original posts in the discussion, including the series of mine that led to this essay. Ironically, the dripping water in my closet has started again because the repairmen seemed to have gone to much greater trouble to re-wallpaper the closet than to prevent water leakage from repeating each time it rains. And since I …

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골프 영어 학원?

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(Trans. “Golf English Cram School”?) It could have happened. Responding to protests, the Ladies Professional Golf Assn. announced Friday that it would back down on suspending golfers who do not speak adequate English, reversing a controversial decision that had thrown the organization smack into the nation’s long-running culture wars. The LPGA Tour had announced last month that it would suspend golfers who could not speak English in media interviews, acceptance speeches and tournaments by 2009, saying that language fluency was critical to the sport’s promotion and marketing efforts. The action occurred as foreigners have increasingly come to dominate women’s golf, …

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Matt on Symmetry in The Host

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This entry is part 14 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

For those into Korean cinema, Korean SF, or both: Matt’s written up a good post on The Host and the role of symmetry in the film, and linked my posts on the Host (starting here). I’ve commented to expand (slightly) on his observations. Check it out! As for me, I’m planning on working on a paper on the film and its political elements, somewhat expanding on my observations in the posts I’ve made here, and on the paper I’ll be presenting in a couple of weeks. I’ll be working on that sometime in the next couple of months, time permitting, …

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Shepherds and Sheep

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Those of you who knows your Canterbury Tales well don’t need the exact line I’m thinking of in that title, so I won’t give it here, since it would be overstatement. Or, well, no, not really, but it would be not-nice understatement, anyway. I’m struck, in reading the work of schoolteachers who are trying to write an English text for students of the level they teach — and trying is the word, indeed in a couple of senses — that maybe some of the content just shouldn’t be in there. The problem isn’t total incompetence on their part. A lot …

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