First of all. I had no idea about this song until a few weeks ago. Secondly, I haven't been to America in over two years. I'm super homesick. I don't think I'll be able to make it for another six or eight months either. My impression of the place these days is that of an angry political smack down and a lot of people without jobs. But for this to be the number 1 billboard song is a total surprise.
Billboard gives me a kind of cringe reaction. I guess I trained myself to be all alternative when I was a kid. I would decry anything that was popular as being shit. I still kind of do that. I think that way whenever I see Maroon 5. Maroon 5 is just that frontier of boring crap. It is like a Dave Mathews Band hermit crab that died and Maroon 5 moved into the shell. See....I get onto a stream of conscious that dregs up all kinds of venom.
But damn, this song is so emo. It has been viewed on youtube 300 million times. I don't know what to conclude about my countrymen these days? Are they politically divided and just super emo? What the hell is going on? And it sucks because I'm in Korea. Kpop is so popular here that Koreans have deluded themselves into thinking that there are people in Nebraska bobbing their heads to The Wonder Girls....eh maybe one or two might be. It sucks culturally to be in Korea and away from popular culture in America.
My co-workers have all been in Korea for about the same amount of time as me. Conversations always devolve down to shit that was said on the Chappelle Show. I figure there are two reasons for that. 1 Dave Chappelle rules. 2. That's where culture stopped for us.
I posted on facebook about how deep this song is, and about how it is strange for it to be the #1 song. I also mentioned how late to the party I was. My friend a D.J. in the group "Flosstradamus," replied that the song had actually been out since 2011. Trust me, Korea isn't going to catch on until a few weeks later. They've got their own thing that they are dealing with now. It's cool though, I heard this on Bae Chul Soo last week, so it will catch on eventually.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Gardening!!!
Tomatoes!
Sunday, May 27, 2012
My Son the Legend of Jinju
Today my son turned 13 months old.
After an incident at Pasta Bueno I realized that my son might be the half Korean Pootie Tang.
He looks both Korean and white. There is a kind of beneficial racism that goes on for him when he encounters the college girls. They go super stupid when they see him. I will now partially fictionalize the romantic encounters of my baby, the cuteness cassanova - Korootie tang:
Around 2 months, we flew to Seoul to get him some U.S. citizenship. We were in a Mister Donut around the U.S. embassy where he got mobbed by some Korean people. A Japanese lady inside of Mister Donut lambasted him by shouting Kawaii Kawaii a bunch of times.
A few months later we were pushing him in a stroller around Jinju's freedom market. He almost got kidnapped by some Ajumas who insisted that we let them watch him while we went shopping.
Fast forward to his first birthday.
We were in VIPS and a girl about his age walked up to him and gave him hug. (True story)
There have been several occasions in Dunkin Donuts where he has charmed college girls by smiling at them.
About three weeks ago we were in some fancy looking college kid slop house called Soga and Cook. Upon seeing a group of college girls he turned and smiled at them. When he noticed that they weren't paying attention to him he chilled a bit, but when they did notice him he smiled and reached towards them.
Today we were in this place called Pasta Bueno. I took him outside while my wife had some food. The kid stood by a bus stop bench and waved at cars. Some girl with some candy materialized out of nowhere and tried to give him some. He is still a bit too young for candy so I shooed her away. Later I took him back up to the restaurant and wolfed down some cream risotto. In that time my wife walked him around the restaurant a bit. She went to get me a mountain dew. At that point the employees got to see him so they all got smiled at by him. I finished my cream risotto and took him outside so my wife could finish her spaghetti salad. I let him play around the area between the stairs and the restaurant entrance. One of the employees, a cute college girl with big glasses and pig tails, noticed him outside of the glass door. She got down on her hands and knees and played peekaboo with him from behind the cash register stand. He ran up and pounded his hands on the automatic glass door.
I feared for this girl. I didn't want her to get fired from her shitty part time job because she ignored her customers to play with a one year old. On other hand, I think that would be awesome for him, to get a girl fired from pasta bueno. He could totally be like, "Yeah when I was one, I got this chick fired from her job cuz she wanted me."
I hope he enjoys it while it lasts. I don't plan on sticking around here long enough for the beneficial racism to turn into real racism on the elementary school play ground, or the bathrooms of a middle school. In the mean time, he is still learning how to talk, so I am trying to teach him how to say this: 천화번호 조. (Give me your phone number.)
After an incident at Pasta Bueno I realized that my son might be the half Korean Pootie Tang.
He looks both Korean and white. There is a kind of beneficial racism that goes on for him when he encounters the college girls. They go super stupid when they see him. I will now partially fictionalize the romantic encounters of my baby, the cuteness cassanova - Korootie tang:
Around 2 months, we flew to Seoul to get him some U.S. citizenship. We were in a Mister Donut around the U.S. embassy where he got mobbed by some Korean people. A Japanese lady inside of Mister Donut lambasted him by shouting Kawaii Kawaii a bunch of times.
A few months later we were pushing him in a stroller around Jinju's freedom market. He almost got kidnapped by some Ajumas who insisted that we let them watch him while we went shopping.
Fast forward to his first birthday.
We were in VIPS and a girl about his age walked up to him and gave him hug. (True story)
There have been several occasions in Dunkin Donuts where he has charmed college girls by smiling at them.
About three weeks ago we were in some fancy looking college kid slop house called Soga and Cook. Upon seeing a group of college girls he turned and smiled at them. When he noticed that they weren't paying attention to him he chilled a bit, but when they did notice him he smiled and reached towards them.
Today we were in this place called Pasta Bueno. I took him outside while my wife had some food. The kid stood by a bus stop bench and waved at cars. Some girl with some candy materialized out of nowhere and tried to give him some. He is still a bit too young for candy so I shooed her away. Later I took him back up to the restaurant and wolfed down some cream risotto. In that time my wife walked him around the restaurant a bit. She went to get me a mountain dew. At that point the employees got to see him so they all got smiled at by him. I finished my cream risotto and took him outside so my wife could finish her spaghetti salad. I let him play around the area between the stairs and the restaurant entrance. One of the employees, a cute college girl with big glasses and pig tails, noticed him outside of the glass door. She got down on her hands and knees and played peekaboo with him from behind the cash register stand. He ran up and pounded his hands on the automatic glass door.
I feared for this girl. I didn't want her to get fired from her shitty part time job because she ignored her customers to play with a one year old. On other hand, I think that would be awesome for him, to get a girl fired from pasta bueno. He could totally be like, "Yeah when I was one, I got this chick fired from her job cuz she wanted me."
I hope he enjoys it while it lasts. I don't plan on sticking around here long enough for the beneficial racism to turn into real racism on the elementary school play ground, or the bathrooms of a middle school. In the mean time, he is still learning how to talk, so I am trying to teach him how to say this: 천화번호 조. (Give me your phone number.)
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
New New Rule
New Rule: If you are a university and you are hosting an event with a cool sounding title like "Technopia," the thing better be some kind of awesome expo of Korean high technology. It shouldn't be a bunch of engineering majors taking three weeks to learn dance routines and then taking a week off to play soccer. Last year when I heard that the university I work for has a "Technopia," every year, I thought that I could see pavilions with laser shooting robots or smart phone apps that can tell how much cholesterol is in food by doing a google photo search, but no Technopia isn't anything like it sounds. It is just a bunch of kids getting drunk and playing games...I guess that is what you are supposed to do when you are a university, but if you are a university in a country that prides it's self in it's technological advancements, at leaast don't get served by a real technopia that happened at my old high school.
Monday, May 21, 2012
New Rules
I like the Bill Maher Show. I'm going to adapt his "New Rules." Segment for this blog with stuff about Korea.
Here is the first one:
New Rules: If you spent over 500,000\ on clothes for riding your bike, you can't go slower than a fat white guy in jeans with a leather briefcase dangling from his wrist.
New Rules: If Dunkin Donuts has Open 7:00 A.M. stenciled to their door, they might want to try opening at seven in the morning. You can't tell me that Koreans are hard workers when you can't get coffee before ten in the morning.
New Rules: Come up with a different name for "Membership Training." You can't have such an anti-communist country have such a communist expression for college kid drinking games. Call it something more fun like "Major night out," or call it something more fitting like "Date Rape camping."
Finally New Rules: Skinny awkward boys with colorful glass frames with no lenses who get their hair cut into the shape of a penis, cannot be considered fashionistas. Just stick with the good old date night stand bye of stripy shirt with a black vest. Maybe carry around a guitar too.
Here is the first one:
New Rules: If you spent over 500,000\ on clothes for riding your bike, you can't go slower than a fat white guy in jeans with a leather briefcase dangling from his wrist.
New Rules: If Dunkin Donuts has Open 7:00 A.M. stenciled to their door, they might want to try opening at seven in the morning. You can't tell me that Koreans are hard workers when you can't get coffee before ten in the morning.
New Rules: Come up with a different name for "Membership Training." You can't have such an anti-communist country have such a communist expression for college kid drinking games. Call it something more fun like "Major night out," or call it something more fitting like "Date Rape camping."
Finally New Rules: Skinny awkward boys with colorful glass frames with no lenses who get their hair cut into the shape of a penis, cannot be considered fashionistas. Just stick with the good old date night stand bye of stripy shirt with a black vest. Maybe carry around a guitar too.
Korea Pharmacy Public Service
So you go to the doctor, and the doctor gives you a prescription. You take the prescription to a pharmacy and they give you a few bags of pills and you don't know what the hell they are.
Well you can go to this website:
http://www.kmle.co.kr/ Just type in the inscription on the pill and a very detailed description of your drug will pop up in Korean.
The chemical names will be in English, so you can just copy and paste into google, and wikipedia yourself into comfort or fear of what you are putting into your body.
Well you can go to this website:
http://www.kmle.co.kr/ Just type in the inscription on the pill and a very detailed description of your drug will pop up in Korean.
The chemical names will be in English, so you can just copy and paste into google, and wikipedia yourself into comfort or fear of what you are putting into your body.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
No Korea Stuff Here
Well folks, it has been a few weeks since I posted anything. I'm kind of disapointed in the K-blogosphere. There hasn't been much to read recently. If I still worked at a public school it would be pretty difficult since there don't seem to be too many people bitching about their jobs anymore. Actually I'm not dissapointed in K-blogland because of that. I'm disapointed because I am the only blogger who seems to have mentioned the passing of the M.C.A. I find that totally lame. I've been rediscovering the Beastie Boys recently. They are pretty awesome.
Anyway, check out this remix of an Usher song from my friend's D.J. duo Flosstradamus. This shit is pretty tight. I like to listen to electronic music in the spring and on rainy days. I don't know why. It makes me want to breathe the air or try self hypnosis or something. It makes me remember people that I lost contact with. I have a nasty cycle of moving on and I'm sorry to the people that I've let down. But I don't think that anybody ever expected much from me anyway. Yeah, check this shit out and start to feel all emo.
Anyway, check out this remix of an Usher song from my friend's D.J. duo Flosstradamus. This shit is pretty tight. I like to listen to electronic music in the spring and on rainy days. I don't know why. It makes me want to breathe the air or try self hypnosis or something. It makes me remember people that I lost contact with. I have a nasty cycle of moving on and I'm sorry to the people that I've let down. But I don't think that anybody ever expected much from me anyway. Yeah, check this shit out and start to feel all emo.
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