Used Clothing Drop-off Bin

Does anyone know who gets the used clothes out of these things? And what they do with it? I have been asking Koreans for two years, and no one seems to know...other than that it probably ends up being sold to Southeast Asians. These things are ubiquitous in Korean urban neighborhoods:

OK

Ignore Alien Orders

Romantic Style Looks for Ajummas

Romantic, eh?

Hanbok

The outfit that all young Koreans love to hate being forced into for traditional holidays. 

And, despite being made of polyester and rayon, for some reason they're expensive. Like $200, right? 

Seoul Dream Forest Park

I took the bus to this place once, and when I got there I couldn't find any forest. Nor did I see any dreams. A slightly exaggerated name? Or maybe just a really awkward translation...

Breaking News

WB

When was the last time you saw a business plagiarize a copyrighted corporate logo and misspell the copyright information? 

Church Architecture

Nothing Can't Get Enough

Note: September is not a date

On Korean Soap Operas

This is too hilariously, satirically, inside-joke brilliant to not share. From Expat Hell, Bobby Lee's take on Korean dramas. My favorite part is the slapping fight the guys get into at 6:35, which anyone who's lived in a Korean city has seen in real life at least few times.

Seen in Busan...

"DRUNKEN PULSE"

Dopey cafe name?

"Dopi" cafe. 

I love...WHAT!?

And this is why Western English teachers, along with the hordes of translators, editors, proofreaders, and other knowledge workers in Korea have job security. Because this was being sold at Daiso - the Korean equivalent of a dollar store - and this is for kids:

"HAPPY I Love Pussy..I have a very good time..Happy time"

Deep in Brown

Sunday

Hey, remember the US beef freakout? That was a fun time...

"visted the market customers"

Why not?

Visual Dick Joke Fountain

Classy, eh? 

Michigan License Plate Hat

Old School Korea

How true. And tasteful.

Right now a Korean kid is wearing this t-shirt to school, and no one is batting an eye. 

A shirt or a cocktail? What?

Only Pure Love

Offline Shop = Shop

For some reason the term "offline shop" is popular in "Korean-style English." In most English-speaking countries the term "shop" is usually enough. This has something to do with Koreans' love of the term "online shopping mall" for giant retailing websites.

Omar Sharif! Again!

Korean bootleg Omar Sharif is back for more!

The Sea of East & Dokdo

As many Foreign criminals living in Korea may know, Gmarket is the biggest purveyor of consumer everything in the Korean intranet. And now they have a new fashion technology innovation - you can proudly wear this propaganda poster on a t-shirt, thereby proving forever and without a doubt that Dokdo is Korean territory! Oh, except that it's spelled wrong as shit...



Related links:

Dokdo Cool R-neck T-shirts/Sea of East T-shirts - Gmarket
Betrayal! Infamy!! Lee Myung-bak Betrays Dokdo! - The Dokdo Times
Foreign Criminals to be Required to Register Fingerprints - The Dokdo Times
Dokdo is Korean Territory - in English!! (No, seriously watch this video. It's amazing.) - Youtube
The Korean Intranet and Why It Exists
Why the Sea of Japan is not the East Sea, and Other Things that Really Piss off Koreans

Miniature of Korean Territory - Dokdo

In the Itaewon subway station: 

"Fun Person Comes In Fun Place"

Fan Death

(source here)

Related links:

Electric fans and South Koreans: a deadly mix? - Reuters
Attack of the Killer Fans: Why are South Koreans Afraid of 'Fan Death' - The Atlantic
Thinking Critically - The Teacher James
Korean education fails to foster critical thinking - Asian Correspondent
Why has the critical thinking movement not come to Korea? - Asia Pacific Education Review

EXTREME OF ALL AROUND TYPE

East Asian Plastic Surgery News

Here's a pathetic news story this blogger is surprised no one hears about in Korea - given how appearance-obsessed many Koreans can be, and how boldly patriarchal Korean culture often deals with marriage and gender roles. From The Costa Rican Times: 

"Divorces are never pretty, but this one is pretty ugly. A man from northern China divorced and sued his wife for being ugly. He won $120,000 in the lawsuit and has once again made the world question the validity of phrases like “marriage” and “love”.

The northern Chinese man, Jian Feng, married his wife and was reportedly absolutely in love with her. Soon, as will happen, she became pregnant and gave birth to a baby girl, which was when the problems arose for Feng.

He thought the baby was incredibly ugly, to the point where it horrified him. The baby resembled neither of her parents, so Feng demanded to know who the father was, because jumping to conclusions about your wife’s faithfulness is the obvious thing to do when you have an ugly baby.

As it turns out, his wife didn’t cheat, but did gloss over the fact that she had spent $100,000 on intense plastic surgery to severely change how she looked before she met him. It’s the kind of thing that can slip your mind on the first date. After his wife revealed this to him, Feng took the only right-minded course of action and divorced and sued her, claiming that she got him to marry her under false pretences. The false pretence presumably being that she was good looking. Incredibly, the (presumably male) judge sympathised with Feng and he won $120,000 in the case.

It’s usually the victim of court cases that you’re supposed to feel sorry for, but it’s kind of difficult to feel sorry for the man who is angry at his beautiful wife for being ugly at some point in her life. If you’re going to feel sorry for anyone, feel sorry for their child, whom will forever be known as the baby that broke her parent’s marriage – with her face."


And just for reference, here is a before and after photo set of the Chinese woman in question:

The photos are pretty dramatic, and look an awful lot like the kind of creepy before and after photos one sees everywhere in the Seoul Metro, doing service in plastic surgery clinic ads.

This story also seems sad because the woman seems to have a legitimate medical problem going on with her right jawline. Calling it simply "ugliness" glosses over the fact that having such dramatically asymmetrical features indicates real health problems. But perhaps being "pretty" is just more important...

Also, this sad story comes from China, but Korea has a lot of the same things going on. The Economist reminded us in April that South Korea has far, far more plastic surgery per capita than any other country on the planet. 

Now Sabotage Star Getter: Far Away Often Learns

"Music to the ears is thought to be important even now the product of self-bringing mind"

Man, no wonder so many Koreans are so proud of "Korean-style English"!

Korean Contradictions

Many Korean organizations and public figures love participating in UNICEF fundraising when it gets them good press and makes everyone think they're awesome. Groups of volunteers often conduct UNICEF fundraising campaigns on the streets of Seoul. Many businesses in Seoul have small donation boxes for UNICEF, with UN literature. Most Koreans know who UNICEF is and what they do.

Here's a bunch of Korean pop stars at a UNICEF event,
having their picture taken in front of a picture of poor African kids. (Source here)

UNICEF is a United Nations organization founded to help poor kids in the developing world. It is often in the media and in public space in South Korea. However, while many people and organizations in Korea enjoy being seen as committed to human rights and humanitarian issues in other countries, there is a much different attitude toward such issues within Korea. 

For the past few months the UN has been holding meetings charging South Korea with institutionalized racism for the way the country treats foreign residents. Specifically, the UN's Committee on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) charged the Republic of Korea with violating international convention by forcing foreign teachers to undergo repeated HIV tests. Gusts of Popular Feeling  has been following the issue in a series of posts - here, here, here, and here. Some promises were made toward the end by Korea, but given how incompetent and corrupt many public leaders in Korea seem to be, profound change in either attitudes or policy is probably unlikely. 

What is the most  interesting thing about that story though is that it was not reported in the Korean press. As in virtual media blackout. (Meanwhile watch what happens when racism affects Koreans, and there is never any shortage of moronic ethnic and nationalist propaganda. Ethnocentrism perhaps?) We all know that the Korean media is head-smackingly lazy and unprofessional, but it's still mildly surprising. And as Popular Gusts and this Korea Times editorial both point out, there is still  no law against racial discrimination in Korea, and therefore no real definition of what it is, or much public understanding of why it's a problem. 

Slate ran a great article a while back entitled "A Nation of Racist Dwarfs," about how North Korea is actually much worse than most Westerners know, because the country runs on a disturbingly racist ideology. Most long term expats in South Korea find such writing useful in large part because South Korea tends to think and act in many of the same ways as North Korea, though that is widely under-reported in the Western press. Probably just because few people have any reason to care about Korea. And because the US-dominated media has a vested interest in making North Korea look like the bad guy, and making South Korea look like our buddy. Much like the discourse about China vs. Korea. 

Meanwhile, Korea will probably keep acting more or less the same way, and just trying to save face when they get called out on it. By the way, the UN and CERD have been on Korea for this type of behavior for years, with minimal results. 

Seriously?

Black Jack Dope Dick Pawn Shop

Seen for sale in Dongdaemun. Right now some Korean mom is probably wearing this on a school field trip, and has no idea what it says:

Near Hooker Hill

Mobile Bullys

Not technically Konglish, but definitely a shop name you'd never see in an English-speaking country. Also, spelling fail on "accesary" and the plural for both "bully" and "mobile":

A Slogan for Korean Work Culture

Working at a  Korean company can be a truly mind-blowing experience. As can working in a Korean-run setting in general. Korean managers are notorious for being disorganized, overbearing, and for failing to plan adequately on a massive scale.

More experienced Westerners in Korea talk a lot about how the general assumption is that failure to plan or organize things meaningfully in the workplace will be corrected by Korea’s bali, bali! (hurry, hurry!) approach to work. Basically everyone does as much work as possible as fast as possible. This is what pulled Korea out of poverty, but it is not too effective in a late-stage developed economy. You can manufacture shoes like that, but it’s a shitty way to run an office, a school, or a major corporation.

South Korea is often applauded for the diligence and work ethic of its people. And Koreans should be respected for all that effort, because they work their tails off. However, this also has obvious downsides. Many people are quite unhappy because they spend all their waking hours at work, causing massive national psychological problems. Also, the overworked masses are producing fewer and fewer children, contributing to Korea’s looming demographic decline -  a major national crisis. Moreover, working hard all time just for the sake of working hard really doesn’t accomplish much. South Koreans have the industrialized world’s longest workweek, and its lowest levels of productivity. And did I mention Korea’s world record suicide rate?

To Westerners working alongside Koreans the decisions made by people in positions of leadership often look shockingly illogical. The lack of planning and organization forces everyone to work much harder than they need to, and causes way more stress than there needs to be. Some expats in Korea come to the conclusion that Koreans like things this way, simply because they go out of their way to look busy, hardworking, and diligent in front of each other. Koreans often judge and criticize each other for looking lazy - for doing things like sleeping in, taking a day off for being sick, or not studying 12 hours a day for students. Even though they are often accomplishing nothing while they are looking busy at work or school, which many Koreans do until something like 11:00 at night every day of the week.

Have i forgotten something?

Seen on a t-shirt in Dongdaemun, typical Korean garbled English:

Korean Territory, US Government Property

This is the wall around the soon-to-be-demolished Yongsan US Army Base in Itaewon, and it's been US property for three generations.

there is good even so unusual

Things You Can See in South Korea: Love Land

This blog has published posts before about how weird, (misinformed), and repressed Korea is about sex. Prostitution is everywhere in Korean cities and it rakes in around 4% of South Korea's GDP. If you stay in a home or hotel that has basic cable you can watch awkward Korean porno movies on tv basically every single night of the week. There is also generally no real sex education in schools here, and dangerous official ignorance about how HIV/AIDS works is shockingly abundant. Meanwhile 60% of Korean teenagers are doing it without any protection - because many Koreans think only "dirty" (non-Korean) people need to use condoms. Cue thousands and thousands of hushed-up teen pregnancies that end in shady abortions.

All that makes Love Land, and its infinite weirdness, all the more surprising. Love Land, pride of Jeju Island, Korea's premier tacky tourist trap vacation destination, has been featured in lots of blogs and travel sites. See here, here, here, here, and here for info and tons more weird photos.

Basically, Love Land is a giant wacky theme park of sculptures about sex. It was built in an effort to "inspire" couples during their honeymoons on Jeju. Since many of them had arranged marriages and, you know, no one ever talked to them about sex. Then again, maybe Love Land isn't surprising. Lots of it is built around things like this visual dick joke, because that's as far as this conversation can go apparently:

Tee hee! Men have penises!!!
And giant naked Caucasian statues that pee outdoors totally  make sense!

Taking out the trash

Back by Popular Demand: Shit White Guys Say to Asian Girls

Norway Cutout

Gimmie a Break!

Hey, could this be a blatant rip off of the British/American Kit Kat bar?

Why BBC Radio 4 Is Wrong about "Gangnam Style"

BBC Radio 4 has a new 3-minute bit about "Gangnam Style" and it's surprising success worldwide. They note that it seems rather odd that Psy is hawking Samsung kimchi refrigerators, given that he made the hit video to lampoon consumer excess in South Korea. But K-pop has always existed for money at least as much as love. In Korea no one bats an eye at celebrities selling everything under the sun. Kim Yu-na certainly raked in the loot on product endorsements...

listen to ‘Why is Gangnam Style a hit?’ on Audioboo

And another tidbit BBC Radio 4 expresses surprise over is the fact that the hit song is being heard in North Korea. The BBC talks about this as though it's shocking and unforeseen. Which is really under-informed  if you get away from the American-dominated propaganda about how the military tension here is so fierce. Korean culture is intensely collective, and North Koreans have only been living outside that family-like circle of trust for two generations, after 4,000 years of more or less shared history.

There was, until very recently, an information iron curtain that sealed off the NorK citizens from the world. But it's been crumbling for the past few years. Ask a North Korean talks about listening to South Korean songs and singing them happily with her family in the North, a not-uncommon spectacle now in the scary commie nation. Officially banned K-pop CDs and illicit DVDs of South Korean dramas sell like hotcakes in North Korean towns and cities.

But here's what the BBC, and most of the West, doesn't get:

Club Crack!

This is a real place in Hongdae. Sadly, it appears to be closed now. This is hilarious, because most Koreans hate drugs and would never experiment with hard drugs, but someone still thought this was a cool-sounding name: