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 …
Tag: KOREA
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 …