Tag: Korean culture

Vampires, Confucianism, Christianity’s Latent Monarchism, and the Translation of Sociohorror

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Seriously, now...
This entry is part 44 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

(Note: I’m filing this under Korean SF, though it only fits there if we define SF as “speculative fiction”: still, I think this post does appeal to a crucial question at the heart of the reception of SF and other fantastical genres in cultures foreign to the culture of a given work’s original production. So there.) So I’ll admit it now: I’ve been watching True Blood. Yes, yes, it’s trashy. But as someone who is not very plot-minded, I have to say, it does a particular trick with a knife that I, too, am learning to do. I’m close to …

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Primitive Selves: Koreana in the Japanese Colonial Gaze by E. Taylor Atkins

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I cannot actually post my review of the book here — a review I’ve just finished, finally, though I got the book in late November. I can’t because I’ve actually just finished writing the review and need to send it to the Japan Times, for whom I was asked to review it. However, there are a few points I think are interesting, and worth mentioning here, not only because they didn’t fit into my review but also because they will probably interest readers of this blog who find the Korea-related or expat stuff interesting. If you’re one of those, read …

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Dominant or Deferential? Looking at the Brain

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One of the interesting things about expats in Korea, and one’s interactions with Koreans, is how some things about Korean society can be so baffling to one. For example, if you look at the comments to this post at Gusts of Popular Feeling (to which comments thread I have contributed a lot, and contributed more today, though they may not show up for a few days, or completely) you’ll see “The Korean” presenting his argument as to why, though he thinks the older woman was out line for pushing things to the point they reached, the younger woman was at …

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Islamophobia in Korea, and the Story of Tablo

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Those of us who have lived in Korea know that regardless of what most people think here–for I think a lot of Koreans, especially younger ones, are relatively open-minded by comparison–the bigots and morons get pretty loud, and they don’t seem to get challenged on it. (Maybe that’s normal in the USA or other places: I’m not sure. It sure wasn’t so normal in the part of Canada in which I grew up. We had bigots, of course, and there was a degree of ignorance about race, multiculturalism, and difference; my best friend in high school had experiences of going …

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Abjuration

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The wailing, the howling at every doorway, At every face seen, “Oh, sallow-cheeked bastard, Obeisances, now, I demand of you!” and amid Hundreds of books, all read, you deign to lecture Me thus? That I may do this, that I oughtn’t to say That? That you have decided this defect of my blood– In the narrow, empty chamber of your head–means I do not care, I could not ever understand? You dare To tell me what words I may and must not speak? You moron, piss-stain down the front of your pants At the slightest hint of disagreement; you are …

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TMI

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Usually, we use that acronym — Too Much Information, TMI — to respond when someone is disclosing information about herself or himself that strays beyond the boundaries of what we’re willing to listen to: the quality of recent bowel movements, what it feels like to have a colonoscopy, why vomiting this food is grosser than vomiting that food, weird sexual proclivities, and so on. However in this case, I’m referring to the kind of information requested by a major Korean company that shall remain nameless and the questions in their application form. Now, I must repeat, the company must remain …

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Anju? No Review…

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Look, I am willing to adapt to a different culture, I really am. I understand that in Korean drinking establishments — especially the kinds of places where soju is available and sold for a pittance — it is traditional to expect customers to order some food, and it’s considered unusual for someone to order drinks and no food. I get that. If little hole-in-the-wall places didn’t make people buy food, they’d go out of business in no time, plus given the local genetics (in terms of capacity for alcohol metabolization), it makes sense to insist people consume something that will …

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ER Horror… and Why I Think “Just Bear It” is so Toxic

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Miss Jiwaku needed to go to the ER the other night — no worries, she turned out surprisingly okay — but we saw people in pain, and the worst pain we saw was, indeed, emotional. There was a family in which the son had some kind of respiratory problem. He’d just had minor surgery and was recovering. His mom and younger brother had brought him in, and I can only guess that the father had been out with his buddies, drinking, because he seemed to show up all of a sudden and start shouting at people. Yes, shouting: it was …

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Subways and Culture

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Once again, I’m linking to Matt’s site, this time where he links an article on how the seats reserved for the old, pregnant, ill, weak, and disabled are, well… some old people seem to think those seats are just for old people, and doing things like shouting at pregnant women for sitting in those seats. Or, in one case, getting into a fight to the death over who gets to sit there. And, well, you know how it is: nobody’s really stepping up to tell them, “No, you have it wrong you crotchety old bastard, now STFU before someone knocks …

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“… For Your Nation…”

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Okay, so, imagine you’re a trilingual Korean. When you’re interviewed by a certain nationalistic, ridiculous TV station — not that I’ll name it specifically, ahem — and they explain the ridiculously low pay they’re offering by explaining that you are, in being offered this job, given a chance to do work “for your nation,” which of the following do you do? (a) laugh in the their face (b) politely ask for more money knowing you won’t get it, and say, “Well, I can make more money teaching in a hakwon, so I think that would be wiser for me.” (c) …

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