Follow Up to my Super Duper Fantastic Rules for Fitting in in Korea

Well folks here's the follow up. If you want to fit in in Korea. You have to illustrate the differences between cultures. Just act like these guys.



Actually I just wanted to post this video. The Beastie Boys rule. (They were a significant influence on my life.)

My All Important Superduper Fantastic Rules for Fitting in In Korea

This blog post is satire. I am a professional satirist with a notarized degree in satire from the University of Western Ontario. I am also the only authority on anything in Korea. I have a C.V. on my blog listing things that I have published on my personal travel blog as an accomplishment. Everyone in the world knows that I am the foremost expert on anything Korean so if you want to know anything about fitting in in Korea this is what you have to read. Everything else will cause your eyes to spontaneously combust in their sockets.

1. Be born out of a Korean woman's vagina.
2. If you are not Korean, are from a non Asian country, can speak Korean pretty well, and are an attractive woman, try to get on T.V.
3. Avoid cross cultural surprises by being polite, but also by not liking anything that is blatantly Korean. Don't be seen in public eating Kimchi. Make sure all of your Korean friends know that you have to follow a strict diet of Hamburgers and Tacos.
4. If you go to some kind of musical event, be sure to talk the whole time about how your friends back in Idaho can do a better job.
5. If you are American, spend August 15th saying "your welcome," to everybody.
6. If you do end up eating Korean food, pretend that everything is just way to spicy. If you go out for Kimchi Jiggae, be sure to take one spoonful and then spend the rest of the night drinking cold water and hyperventilating.
7. Play starcraft.
8. Koreans appreciate the extra English practice, don't speak Korean.
9. If you slip up and eat Kimchi and soju in a way that makes Korean people take notice enough to comment on the fact that they think that you are almost Korean, reply by saying that being Korean is what you have always wanted.
10. Take interest in one of the countries sports stars. Wallpaper your one room with pictures of Kim Yeon-ah. Take a think of lipstick and draw hearts around her head on the pictures. Frame that one photo of her where she is shooting her finger gun, and keep lit candles around it.
11. As a man over thirty who still carries a pencil case, think nothing of the fact that you have a cut out picture of After-school member Uee taped to the inside.
12. Be nice to people. When kids point at you and say "foreigner," or "hello," be sure to give them the attention that they deserve, follow them home and give them a free English lesson.
13. Get interested in Korean things, if you didn't like dramas like CSI back in your home country, you can watch that fucking show like fifteen times a day on OCN. You can meet Koreans who watch that show to, and then you will have something to talk about.
14. Did you know that Nicholas Cage is married to a Korean woman. He is my favorite actor now. "Knowing," was an awesome move.

If you have any more ideas, please send me an e-mail. I will read your e-mails with interest. Mostly because 75% of the e-mails I get are from investment newsletters, or from facebook telling me that someone I don't know commented on something that someone I do know wrote.

Samurai Sword Exercise

I had a similar idea for this type of thing. My long term dream now is to make enough money to go back to college to study dietetics. Later I would like to open a martial arts school that can put people on a diet and excise regimen to loose weight and get healthy. I've been training in the traditional Korean art of Tae Kyon since November, and I've practiced Korean Kendo on and off for about five years.

I think that Tae Kyon and Kendo are good work outs because they are both rather gentle. Kendo motions are simple and they provide a good arm, back, and ab workout. The footwork also gives some good cardio.

Taekyon is also quite gentle except it has potential to be hard on the knees.

Thoughts on Mad Cow

A couple years after the mad cow protests, Korea is now the number 1 importer of U.S. beef. Surprisingly, after revelations that the U.S. military probably buried a shit load of Agent Orange somewhere in Gyeongsangbukdo, I'm rather surprised at how muted the response has been.

Mad cow threat = imaginary, yet it yielded some of the most melodramatic protests in modern history.

Fucking agent orange that was actually buried somewhere = real threat, yet people are rather blaze about the whole thing. They just seem to say, damn American bastards, and then go on their way.

Kind of strange.

Orange Caramel

I remember when I was a kid, my parents used to buy bulk brach's candies when they were on sale. They had these little caramel snacks called royals. One of the royal's flavors was orange. It was a piece of caramel wrapped around some orange taffy. I like them when I was a kid.

Many years later, 3 members of the pliedis entertainment-super-girl-group After School formed a sub group called orange caramel.

Orange Caramel has released three songs. Two of them are quite terrible, and one is a pretty good dance song. The group has progressed in a very bizzare fashion. Their first two songs "Magic Girl, and "aing" features the girls dressed up like sexy children's show hosts. The songs are very childish, but for some reason men seem to love them. It isn't too pronounced but you can kind of here a bunch of guys in the audience flipping out about this song.



Now here is aing, and you can here some freaking out in the audience. I'm guessing the guys liked their outfits....I'm not saying I wouldn't hit that but damn, why get all hot and bothered over a kid's song?



Now on to the song that I actually do kind of like, Bankok City. This song really doesn't fit the pattern. I mean they go from being little red riding hoods to girls in clubs singing about Bankok. I read the English subtitles to the song, and apparently the song is about a girl in a club wanting to be hit on by some guy. A slight departure from being a magic girl who grants wishes. Aside that I actually like the song. It has good beats and the singing is kind of sultry. For some reason I like dance music in the spring. I remember around this time last year I wanted to listen to "Everything But the Girl's" "Missing," all of the time.

I do have a few bones to pick with the actual video though. First of all, Bankok is very hot and humid, yet those girls are supposedly in a Bankok club wearing full body suits. Secondly, who the hell wears a bra over their shirt? Check out the chick 34 seconds in. Seriously though, the song isn't too bad.

Duh

Went to a mandu place today. I walked into the restaurant, looked at the menu, obviously read the menu and then ordered Bibim Mandu. Bibim mandu is simply a salad with fried mandu and pepper paste in it. The lady looked at me and said something about it being spicy. I said that's okay.

I wonder if the lady thought I didn't know what I was doing. I, after all, marched straight in read the menu, and didn't hesitate to make my choice.

Actually I think she was just a bitch and didn't want me to interrupt the soap opera she was watching. The bibim mandu was pretty good, but I don't think I'll go back to that place.