Recent Blog Posts



All Recent Posts

Creative Korean Advertising #19: Underappreciated Konglish


Lotte DC Card Commercial( Source )

For all my critical analysis of Korean commercials over the years, first impressions still really last on me.

Take the following commercial for Lotte DC Plus Card (롯데 DC플러스 카드) for instance, which I frequently noticed on Yahoo Korea! last week while I was preparing this post on a rather strategically-placed soju bottle in another commercial featured there. For a long time, I thought actor Kim Ah-joong (김아중) and the male voiceover were merely saying “DC” repeatedly, albeit pronouncing it “dee-she” because that’s how it would sound if written in the Korean alphabet (which lacks a “C” or “see” sound):

But provided it’s done by attractive members of the opposite sex, then, well, I often find English mispronounced by non-native speakers to be rather cute, and I’d wager you do too. And indeed, the focus on the voices in this commercial was the deliberate intent of the advertiser, as not only is there the following amusing version in which Kim Ah-joong’s voice is placed into the mouths of others…

…but the entire thing has even been made into an extended song, downloadable from the Lotte DC Plus Card website (see here for the lyrics):

And I was considering post the commercial(s) here simply on those merits alone. But I’ve occasionally misinterpreted commercials in the past because of not double-checking them later, so I made sure to do so with these ones. And I’m very glad I did, as – as some of you will already have noticed – reading the commercials as mere mispronunciation of an English acronym is completely mistaken.

Lotte DC Card Commercial Screenshot( Source: Paranzui )

Take the second commercial again: if you listen very closely, while the male voiceover is saying “DC” repeatedly, it turns out that Kim Ah-joong is actually only saying that about half the time. For instance, when the scene above comes up at 0:07, she says “bing-she-doh dee-she” (빙씨도 디씨), and, lo and behold, “bing” (빙) is the family name of the people depicted (written on the pots), “she” (씨), written in the Chinese character “氏” is much like the titles “Mr” and “Mrs” etc., albeit with the important proviso that you would never use them to refer to a superior (people’s positions, like “Teacher Kim”, “Superintendent Park” and so on are used instead), “doh” (도) means “also”, and “dee-she” means, well, “DC.” So, Kim Ah-joong is not mindlessly repeating “DC” in a Korean accent, albeit rather cutely, but instead saying “The Bings also [like/use] the DC card,” and before them, the middle-aged woman “Choon (춘) also [likes/uses] the DC card,” and so on.

This would have been more obvious to me had I seen the earlier commercials in the series:

Ultimately then, this is actually quite a clever and amusing use of the different meanings and pronunciations of  the “C” sound in both languages. And, forgive me if I’m projecting here, but I think it just goes to show how there is often a great deal more to Korean advertising than what may at first appear. Moreover, just like a little knowledge of Korean suffices to completely transform one’s opinion of these commercials, not much more is required to see Korean society in a new light also: recall how full of sexual innuendo this and this example were for instance, but in a society still usually labeled as “sexually conservative” by the English-language media.

(For all posts in the Creative Korean Advertising series, see here)

Share

Posted in Creative Korean Advertising, Learning Korean Tagged: 롯데, 롯데 DC플러스 카드, Konglish, Lotte, Lotte DC Plus Card
  

 

Papaya Salad


We've spent the last week or so in Luang Prabang doing a whole lot of nothing. We've met some people, gone bowling a few times, and nursed a couple of Beer Lao hangovers. We've read alot, eaten four times at an Indian restaurant, and generally passed our days ambling around the small town drinking fruit shakes and eating Laughing Cow cheese baguettes.



We've also discovered papaya salad. This stuff packs a heavy punch. Papaya shavings are pounded in a huge pestle and mortar along with birds eye chillies, cherry tomatoes, mini aubergines and something loosely translated into English as "hot plums." Citrus juice, salt, sugar and prawn paste are then added and tested to create a precise balance of flavours. The salad also comes with a side plate of cabbage and some other vegetables of weird and wonderful provenance.



I've been accused of wolfing down my food at times, but in papaya salad I've met my match. The hot, sour, sweet, fermented combination is simply too much to tackle full bore. Luckily, however, the crunchy, fresh papaya, and side plate of veg work as the perfect foils to this assault on the senses. With a steady, measured approach, the flavours unfold like oil in a puddle.



I can see why the vendor found it necessary to taste each batch as she went along. Without careful balancing this type of thing could seriously blow up in your face. The chili, citrus and prawn paste were all combustible flavours that both complemented each other and wrestled for control of the taste buds.

This was Laos food done for Laos people and made absolutely no concessions to the western palate. I think I'll wait a while before tackling another papaya salad - I need some time to let my mouth acclimatise!

Question from a reader: financial obligations abroad

A reader wrote me recently with several questions. While most had to do with finding a job and recruiters (two subjects I've talked about quite often), this one was new to me:

I'm not straight out of university so [I] have financial responsibilities and would prefer to know what I'm getting myself into.

One thing a lot of people overlook is their financial matters - both here in Korea and back in their home country. If my recent poll is any indication, at least a fair percentage of English teachers come to Korea for the money, whether to build a savings or for a better lifestyle.

Before leaving your home country
  • Tell your bank you're leaving the country and will need to stop paper statements to your current address. Keep your current account open, and definitely keep some money in it in case of an emergency. Make sure your debit card(s) won't expire for awhile - especially if your one-year trip goes longer than you expect.
  • Credit cards (if any): register on the company's website, and figure out the way to pay your bill automatically or electronically from your home country's bank account (e.g. without those paper checks that have otherwise been collecting dust). Don't forget to stop paper statements.
  • Student loans (if any): same thing. Most student loan companies feature the same electronic / automatic payment features as credit cards. Peruse the website and register before leaving. Did I mention stopping the paper statements?
  • Write down account numbers, password hints (you do use more than one password, right?), the aforementioned websites, and/or bookmark the pages if you're taking your computer. Keep as much as possible on 'the cloud', just in case a computer crashes and can't be recovered.
Once in Korea
  • Establish a budget - whether you've had one before or not. Figure in rent, eating in, eating out, travel (a LOT cheaper here than elsewhere, some clothes and household items to start out, monthly bills (electricity, water, internet, cell phone), and so on.
  • Force yourself to save at least some money - whether cash in an envelope hidden in your apartment, a separate bank account, or something else, 100,000 - 200,000 won a month adds up fast. The reasons why are obvious enough: vacation, a emergency plane ticket back home, a shiny new gadget or computer,
  • Check your paycheck stubs carefully to ensure you're getting everything you agreed to. If any deductions are made, make sure you know why and that they sound reasonable. A co-worker was a little surprised to find her cell phone deduction (provided by the employers and the cost deducted from her paycheck) was over 100,000 won a month until she switched to Skype for her international calls.
  • Open a bank account at KEB. Internet banking in English and the ability to wire money to your home country online at half the cost elsewhere, along with all the standard stuff the rest of the banks offer. They're all around Korea, though their expat VIP branches are in Gangnam (near Yeoksam station), Itaewon, and Hannam-dong. Fifteen others are called KEB Global Desks - plenty of English to go around. Seriously - these guys rock (and no, they don't pay me to say that).
  • Learn how to pay your bills. If you pay any of your bills (electricity, water, internet), you'll get a paper slip in your mailbox every month to take to the bank. Ask a bank employee to help the first couple times, but it's pretty simple. Personally, one trip a month to the bank to pay bills suits my fancy just fine - and it's taken right out
  • Start a filing system - ideally, any money you receive or pay for important stuff will have a receipt. Save the receipts when you pay a bill and staple them to the bill in case there's a problem. Don't forget your pay stubs / paycheck information.
  • One day a month, review everything - possibly the day you pay your bills. Is all the money where it's supposed to be? All the bills being correctly? Go to your bank(s) and update your passbook(s), then take a look at those records.
Experienced expats, did I miss anything?

Creative Commons License © Chris Backe - 2009

 

Our Korean Wedding, Part 3

Around this age is when a fair few people choose to get married. A lot of friends have already been married, and some have weddings in the next few months. 27 years old seems young and I often ponder whether we should have waited longer. But in the end I always come to the same conclusion. And that is that when you're as sure as you'll ever be that you've found the right person, there's no reason to wait any longer.

Heather and I are both lucky enough to have great friends and supportive family. When I was younger, I thought I'd like to have a very quiet wedding with only a couple of close friends around. In the end, it's up to the couple whether they want a big wedding or a small one. Ours was medium-sized and turned out to be just the way we wanted.

Isn't she lovely?

All of the photos on this wedding post are taken by friends of ours. Lots of them are from Jef Robison, including this one, and there are some taken by Brandon Na. Thanks guys.

We started eating dinner around sunset. The Kitchen is our favourite restaurant in Korea, and we had met the chef a few months earlier to discuss the wedding menu. He's very talented and capable, with a good sense of creativity. Heather and I were probably the last to start eating, and a lot of the good things had been finished by that time, but it didn't matter.

You need to save space when you know there's champagne coming later.

In this photo I'm wearing a traditional hanbok, which Heather and I changed into. I don't have any good photos of us both wearing them, but we'll probably receive some from the agency photographer later, which I'll post sometime.
When people had finished eating, my Dad, my brother and I gave short speeches. While I quite like public speaking, the question is, what on Earth do you say at your own wedding?

Well, I thanked everyone else who made the day possible, and then I talked about how lucky I was to marry my wife.

And to wrap up the dinner, Heather's younger brother (Jang-Ho) and his friend performed a Korean song for us. They had been practising a fair bit and Jang-Ho had only started learning recently. The performance was quite humourous and had a good feeling to it.

Then it was off to Round 2. Jun is one of Daniel's friends, and is one of those Korean older brothers you have with an 'interesting' network of characters. He and Roman organised and decorated this wedding car for us. The car was brand new and actually had a sticker on the driver's seat that said "To Be Delivered". I think he had to return it to the car shop later.
Jun drove at around 15km/hr and had made a romantic playlist of 1980s classics for us to listen to. Thanks Jun!

We were lucky with the venue for the second round. A new bar called Paris had just opened on the second floor of Anthony's apartment. So Anthony and Rebecca went down to talk to the owner a few weeks before the wedding. The owner is a fairly young guy and offered to reserve us a section of the balcony for free. Even better, we were allowed to bring our own drinks with no corkage charge.
The bar is right on the beach at Gwangali and has a view of the bridge. A perfect venue for the second round. Thanks go out to the owner of Paris (Cavin), as well as Rebecca and Anthony!

If you're in Busan sometime in the future, consider visiting the Paris Bar on Gwangali Beach and giving them patronage. It's on the second floor next to the Homer's Hotel.

Two of Heather's bridesmaids, Ellie and Heidi.

These are the two folks I used to work with in the old HR department at Injung Education (CDI). On the left is Kelly, who is in the middle of traveling around the world, and on the right is Brandon, who now has a radio show on Busan eFM.

Here's Nathan Saler, Jennifer Pejic and Jef Robison.

Dad, Heather and me.

We're smiling for all the blog readers out there.

Our photographer had gone home earlier in the night and I haven't been able to track down many photos with some of the other guests. As a blogger, you know you had a good time when you are missing large chunks of the night in the photo record.

Here's Cavin, the owner of Paris Bar. In this photo he's pouring a special wedding fountain for us. After pouring the alcohol on top, he engulfed it in flames and then someone else made it sparkle with flint.
The flames were put out, and then Heather and I drank it together. It tasted fruity.

Our favourite celebration drink is Moet and Chandon. On the night we brought in 15 bottles with both brut and rose' on offer.

I remember clinking glasses, but the rest of the night is just a warm fuzzy memory.

We woke up the next day at the Aqua Palace Hotel and opened the curtains to a very fine day of warm sunshine. The day after you get married, it's fun reflecting on yesterday. It's also tempting to contemplate in what other ways the wedding may have turned out if such-and-such had happened, but this is a temptation worth resisting. In the end you take it for what it meant to yourself and others, and then it's time to focus on being a good husband.

I'll post some odds and ends from the wedding at a later date, but next up on Lee's Korea Blog is the 2-week honeymoon. We packed a lot into those two weeks, and it will take me around a month to get it all up on the blog.

Here's hoping that you'll find it interesting!

Korean Sociological Image #21: Calf Reduction Surgery


Korean Calf Reduction Surgery Advertisement Before After

It’s one thing to be aware of the popularity of calf-reduction surgery in Korea on an abstract level, but quite another to see the results in the flesh for the first time.

Or rather, the reduction thereof. And while I’m aghast at the notion of voluntarily having one’s nerves cut and muscle removed for any cosmetic surgery procedure, in this particular case the mind simply boggles at how anybody can consider the “after” picture as an improvement.

Unfortunately though, it is neither a mistake nor a satire, but is instead from a genuine advertisement in this month’s Busan edition of Cocofun (코코펀), a free local entertainment guide available in major cities. Here is the full version:

Korean Calf Reduction Surgery Advertisement

For the record, I’m not labeling skinny calves as unattractive by definition, particularly if a woman – and it’s overwhelmingly women who undergo calf-reduction surgery – has such legs naturally; as it happens, the difficulty of finding food I wasn’t allergic to when I was young meant that my own calves probably weren’t much bigger until my mid-teens, even though I’m a man. Buffing-up in my early-20s to compensate for my own body image then, naturally I also prefer healthy and active women over sedentary thin ones today, but regardless I struggle to see how the muscle development naturally ensuing from such a lifestyle could ever be considered unattractive.

This isn’t the case in Korea and the rest of Northeast Asia however. For a good introduction as to why, I recommend this post at FeetManSeoul for starters, while some other sources, such as the following English guide to the procedure from this cosmetic surgery clinic in Seoul for instance, also mention the fact that “Asian women have shorter legs and thicker calves than Caucasian women.” But lest one is tempted to read too much into that curious comparison though, by no means do all commentators on the subject indirectly refer to some alleged Caucasian ideal, and actually even this more direct description of the procedure from the same site fails to mention it.

Korean Calf Reduction Surgery ( Source )

However, there may also a generational difference to take into account. Take 38 year-old singer and actor Uhm Jung-hwa (엄정화) below for instance, appearing in a press conference with 29 year-old actor Han Chae-young (한채영) for their movie Are you living with the person you love? (지금 사랑하는 사람과 살고 있습니까?) in July 2007. Ironically, both are well-known for having received extensive cosmetic surgery, but as you can see, only Uhm Jung-hwa has retained her muscular legs. I find her much the more attractive for that reason, and seriously wonder how much physical exertion Han Chae-young is capable of; did I mention that calf-reduction patients have to learn how to walk again?

Uhm Jung-Hwa Han Chae-young legs calvesBut while its voluntary nature may may mean that it’s too extreme of me to compare calf-reduction surgery akin to foot-binding at this point (although both do involve the physical disablement of women for the sake of a wholly artificial beauty ideal), I will go so far as to invoke Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects (1792) here. For not only did she note that women being considered “too susceptible to sensibility and too fragile to be able to think clearly” was partially the consequence of not receiving the physical education that boys did (see here also), tellingly she also wrote that women are “taught from their infancy that beauty is woman’s sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and, roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison”, implying that if young women weren’t so encouraged to focus their attention on beauty and outward accomplishments, they could achieve much more.

Points to ponder in a country where health-food is promoted to elementary school girls on the basis of allegedly improving their face-shape and making their undeveloped breasts and buttocks bigger. And yet still people wonder why I’m so negative sometimes…!

(For all posts in the Korean Sociological Images series, see here)

Share

Posted in Korean Advertisements, Korean Sociological Images, Korean Women's Body Images Tagged: Calf Reduction Surgery, Calves, Cocofun, Cosmetic Surgery, Han Chae-young, 성형수술, 한채영, 엄정화, 종아리, 종아리수술, 코코펀, Plastic Surgery, Uhm Jung-hwa

Street Burger: Luang Prabang


You just can't beat a good burger. There's something elemental about the combination of meat, bread and sauce that, when done properly, leaves most other meals eating dust. I know it, the Americans know it, and apparently at least one Luang Prabang street vendor knows it now too.

Since the start of our trip I've frequently run the burger gauntlet. Sometimes, such as at My Burger My, in Hanoi, this has paid off. More frequently however, my Asian burger experience has been one of disappointment and self-reproach.

Like street food, burgers are something I feel very strongly about. That's why when I spied this street burger stand at the corner of Luang Prabang's main street I was a little concerned. A bad experience here could leave me doubly wounded, and bump the town down a couple of notches in my esteem.

In the end I needn't have worried.

The burger turned out to be a decent all-rounder. The beef had a bit of a cheapo twang to it but was reasonably tasty nonetheless. Most importantly, it had been hand formed. This suggested a little thought had been put into the sandwich and instantly elevated it above the overpriced monstrosities that are the mainstay of most UK chip vans.

Re toppings, I always leave burger dressing to the pros. This particular burgermeister opted for a standard lettuce/tomato/raw onion salad. She also slapped the lower bun with a layer of mayonnaise, and squeezed a few expressionist dashes of ketchup and American mustard on the upper bun. Although a bit of the local hot sauce wouldn't have gone amiss, the classic combo gave the burger a saucy, juicy appeal that cut straight to the heart of the genre. This was burgerdom in its simplest, most unadulterated form.

The best bit about the burger, however, was the bun. It was large, soft, and speckled with sesame seeds. The bun was advertised as locally made and this freshness shone through. No-one in Asia does bread like the South East Asians, and in Lunag Prabang they've got the burger bun down.

Although by no means the best burger I've had in Asia so far, the LP street burger definitely makes the top ten. What it lacks in local flare, it makes up for in straightforward-back-to-basics charm. As such, my faith in burgers and street food remain intact, and I will continue to regard Luang Prabang as one of my favourite spots on the planet!

Pages

Subscribe to Koreabridge MegaBlog Feed