Lime called me this afternoon with some news. A co-worker, Jason, and I had asked her about whether poetry readings of the sort we’re familiar with back in the West happen in Korea. She said she didn’t know of any such venues or regular readings, but said she’d keep her eyes open for us. As part of the local traditional culture festival, there was a reading held at the top of a hill. It featured, according to Lime, some of the major voices in contemporary Korean poetry, all people from Jeollabuk-do. And before I give my honest impressions, I want …
Tag: KOREA
The Globe and Mail: Canadian teachers caught in S. Korean crackdown
Here we go with another newspaper misrepresentation. But this time, it’s not the Dong-Ah or the Joongang or the Chosun Ilbo, or even the Korea Herald. It’s The Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper thant just ran a story titled: Canadian teachers caught in S. Korean crackdown. I got an email from my accountant in Montreal asking if I am okay. I got another email forwarded to me from a reporter in Saskatchewan who wants to talk to a Canadian in Korea about “the Canadian crackdown”. Well, as far as I know, it’s not a Canadian crackdown. It’s just a …
The Notion of Customer Service in Korea
This post is going to be full of observations, and questions, but not full of answers. Frankly, although I’m more of a consumer here than I ever was in North America — in the sense that I actually deal with a lot more people in the service industry — I still don’t really have a good fix on the Korean idea of how customer and service provider is idealized or considered. Here’s what I mean: in North America, if you work in the service industry, the adage is that “The customer is always right.” Now, this is an adage, not …
A Question and A Weird Observation
I’ve got a question: does anyone know whether the Japanese “taiko” drum has a long tradition of Korean performers? Does the drum’s presence in Korean music predate Japanese occupation? How popular is it in Korea today? I went to pick up some tickets for the Sori Festival this week, and stayed around to see the opening night pre-Fest party. (The real Opening Concert is tomorrow night, and since I have a night class, I’ll have to miss it! But I have tickets to a ton of other great shows this week, thanks to the pass I was given for doing …
The Day-Numbers Game
It’s funny how some people find more to complain about with regard to Koreans behaviour around foreigners, and other people find more to complain about with regards to foreigners in general. I was on the phone tonight with an old friend of mine who has just moved to Korea, and he said that after a few weekends in foreigner bars, in different cities no less, he found that it was all the same people. Literally, he said, Same people, different face, but the same damn people just the same. How true, in my experience, which is why it seems to …
What I’m Reading Now: Dickens Surprise and the Roots of Protestant Korean Ecstatic Rites
Quick Note: That “and” in the title isn’t meant to suggest a connection between Charles Dickens and evangelical Christianity in Korea. There might be such a link, somewhere—hell, one of Dickens’ sons came to Canada and worked for the government, who’s to say someone else from his life didn’t end up in East Asia?—but I’m not posting any such thing. Although I have two other books on the go—The Golden Ass, a brilliant and hilarious Roman tale by Lucius Apuleius “Africanus”, and Philip E. Baruth’s political SF satire The X President—I have also taken the time to dig into a …
A National Emergency
No, not in America. In Korea. The Onion-style. I’ve often thought about an expat-focused version of The Onion, and Peemil wrote an article that would fit into that absolutely perfectly: Korean Man Dislikes Kimchi Immensely: SEOUL: A nationwide emergency intervention is being planned to force Mr Bak to eat the nations signature food after it was revealed yesterday that he doesn’t like it. The allegations came to light while Mr Bak was attending dinner with work colleagues on Saturday evening. “I couldn’t believe it,” said Mrs Lee who is a colleague. “We were all sitting around the table discussing what …
Happy Liberation Day
Well, it’s a holiday in Korea, but I’m working nonetheless: the kids are having their first day back on a major Korean holiday. Interesting. Usually Mondays are tough; getting back into the camp groove after a few days home is always hard. If you go look at Google, the Korean front page has a nice graphic up today, that looks like this: It was a nice touch, as well as a good reminder for me. Happy Liberation Day to any Korean readers who might actually visit today.
It’s really like living in a Graham Greene novel sometimes…
I was reading Entry #88 over at Liminality, which The Big Hairy Hominid linked to recently, and some thoughts came to me… but this is a long post, so I’ll be putting it into the extended entry.
Korean MMORPG Culture: A Lecture By Leo Sang-Min Whang
When I was plunking around for a link to Cory Doctorow’s wonderful story “Anda’s Game”, I found (on this page) an interesting link to the State of Play 2 conference and a very interesting talk by professor Leo Sang-Min Whang about the Korea-specific experience of gaming in MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games). His area of focus in study is comparing East Asian countries in gaming Some of the interesting points he raised include: Unlike with young people Japan (and, Whang suggests, in other parts of Asia), cosplay (public displays performed by individuals who are dressed up as video-game …