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Alien Refugees Take Over Korean Movie Theatres Tomorrow


District 9

DISTRICT 9

Directed by: Neill Blomkamp

Starring: Sharlto Copley, David James

Release Date: October 16 (in theatres everywhere)

The title of “District 9″ refers to the name of a refugee camp set up in Johannesburg, South Africa to house thousands of aliens after their giant spaceship broke down just over the city. While I usually disregard most sci-fi movies, this one seems different in the sense that it turns the conventions of the genre on its head. Usually, extra-terrestrial visitors come to Earth with the intention of invading our planet and exterminating our race. This time it’s us cruel humans who walk all over the helpless aliens.

Besides, after watching more than a dozen art films during PIFF, I could use a good ol’ Hollywood popcorn flick.

My review of “Tales from the Golden Age” (Cristian Mungiu…, 2009) is now online here:Joh

Best places of Korea awards, as decided on by YOU

There are already plenty of 'best of...' sort of lists - often put out by official organizations or government departments. Not too many of them are compiled and awarded by expats, however, so let's start one up.

Think of your favorite places in Korea - where you've gotten off the beaten path, saw some fun sights, hiked a mountain, or just went on a great date.


Taking nominations for the best places in Korea, in the following categories, until midnight Korean time on October 31st. Voting will commence shortly after.

Basic rules:

  • To nominate a place, leave a comment or send an email to chrisinsouthkorea AT gmail DOT com.

  • Nominate as many or as few places as you like! For the sake of diversity, try not to nominate a place for more than 3 categories.

  • You do not need to nominate some place for each category - pick 'em as you see 'em.

  • Please nominate based on first-hand experience - in other words, you've been there and you love it - not by seeing a place in pictures or in a blog.

  • Think of specific places, not general categories (Seoul Grand Park, not 'a park'; The War Memorial of Korea, not 'a museum'). Geographical areas such as Hongdae, Insa-dong, or Itaewon are acceptable, as are specific places within those geographical areas.

  • All places must be in Korea, whether mainland or island. I'm sure that place you saw in Japan during your vacation was beautiful, but it's not eligible here.

Without further ado, here are the categories:

  1. Best place for a first date

  2. Best place to see the stars

  3. Best place to read a book

  4. Best place to meditate / think / reflect

  5. Best place to get a quick bite to eat

  6. Best place to get away from kids

  7. Best place to catch a nap (other than your apartment)

  8. Best place to go shopping

  9. Best place to kill / waste time

  10. Best place to get away from it all

  11. Best place to take an overnight trip

  12. Best place to watch the sunset

  13. Best place to people-watch

  14. Best place to be on wheels (biking, rollerblading, etc.)

  15. Best place to take your parents if they visit Korea

Comments are open.

Creative Commons License © Chris Backe - 2009

 

Korean Sociological Image #20: Sex Sells


Yahoo Korea Cheoum Cheorom Cool UEE

Pity the hapless commentator on hidden themes in advertising. Not only is he or she often accused of overanalysis, but men in particular can be labeled as positively perverted in seeing sexual symbols in otherwise inanimate objects.

Granted, sometimes a bottle is just a bottle, and Cheoum Cheoreom Cool (처음처럼 쿨), a new brand of soju, is not the only commercial to have an animated example of its product moving across the screen below it on Yahoo! Korea at the moment. But I do wonder why the bottle is tilted the way it is though, particularly as the long-held convention in Korean alcohol advertising is that bottles should always be displayed standing upright?

As it happens, that convention is still adhered to on Cheoum Cheoreom Cool’s website, but with the soju bottle springing-up in a most satisfying manner in the corner of the screen once you click on the “over 19″ button. That wasn’t the case when I wrote about its marketing campaign last month.

Naturally, I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

But I’m not against this latest twist per se, and indeed this advertisement for bokbunja (복분자) below with a similar theme still puts a smile on my face 4 months after first noticing it (see here for more like it). And yet Cheoum Cheoreom Cool’s version isn’t quite so, well, elegant, and smacks of desperation given that the campaign already so excessively focuses on female body parts. Perhaps like Lee Hyori before her, UEE (유이) isn’t bringing Lotte the increased market share anticipated?

Phallic Bokbunja advertisement( Source: Jinro )

Thanks to reader “JSK Hanglo” for bringing the commercial to my attention.

Update: See here for some similar phallic symbolism from the latest New Yorker.

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

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Posted in Korean Advertisements, Korean Sexuality, Korean Sociological Images Tagged: Cheoum Cheoreom Cool, 소주, 유이, 처음처럼 쿨, Soju, UEE
  

 

Our Korean Wedding, Part 2

A great thing that happens when you're about to get married is that you really notice the number of good friends that you have in your life. It's a time when new friends and old ones come together to help you out and wish you well, and you feel only the need to return all of the favours you're receiving. But of course you're too busy getting married and just have to make do with the knowledge that you'll help them back again, someday.

These five people in the photo above are Toastmasters from SRTM. They're also good friends, and came down from Seoul to Busan for the wedding. From left to right is Judy, James, Dory, Chris and Alice.

And yes, I do believe they are drinking Hoegaardens in the morning.

As you can see, they scrubbed up nicely. They were among the first to arrive at the venue.

Of special mention is the fact that Chris and James acted as MCs for the wedding. I realised rather late that the wedding needed a host to introduce the speakers and explain to the guests in English and Korean what was happening. Chris and James agreed to do it, with little time to prepare, and did a perfect job. Chris spoke in Korean and James followed closely with his truly appropriate Australian accent. Heather and I are both deeply thankful to them and all of the other good people who helped us on the day.

And I also think that the photo above belongs on the cover of a music album.

This is us exchanging our wedding rings. A funny thing that happened was that Mr Kang wanted to do the ring exchanging right at the beginning, but the rings were still downstairs. So we just ended up doing it later in the ceremony. Maybe I should have chosen a best man after all.

I told Heather beforehand, no matter what goes wrong, it doesn't matter as long as we end up being married by the end of it.

Here are Heather's friends, from her university English speaking club. They're a lively lot.

King and his friend sang a Korean ballard for us on cordless microphones. I had a slight notion that it might turn out a bit funny, but it was very well done. After that Mr Yeom, who was once an opera singer, sang 'You Raised Me Up' originally by Secret Garden. It was the first time I'd ever heard him sing in English.

Then we bowed to both parents and to the audience, to show our respect. It's always funny when I bow in the traditional Korean way, which is to crouch on the floor, because my knees aren't very good at the motion and it looks clumsy. You have to practice from a young age.

In this photo you can see Heather's ajumma helper, who was constantly preening and making sure the dress was behaving appropriately.

Then we bowed with our parents to the audience. That's probably the main difference between Korean and Western weddings, there's a lot of bowing involved.

Then it was time for the wedding march up the aisle, hand-in-hand, to symbolise our first steps into a new future.

The sun stayed out for us quite nicely, and only just began to set when we were finishing the ceremony.

Then it was photo time with the family members. My dad and brother spent one week in Busan before the wedding, and got to know Heather's family. They reckon that Heather's lot are a good bunch of people. Heather's family were also pleasantly surprised by how laid-back we Australians are. In particular, my new mother-in-law was impressed by how much my brother can eat.

In the bottom photo, the people in the background are all making little lovehearts with their hands.

I don't remember having this photo taken, but I do remember being happy.

What a romantic moment. Oh look, there's Jef!

(It's an 'in' joke.)

Well, what can I say? It was really a great day for both of us and we only hope that the guests enjoyed themselves as much as we did.
Weddings take a fair bit of planning and things can get stressful, but on the day you just need to remember that it's your day and the only thing you need to do is to savour the moment.

My lovely bride at sunset. These days I mostly see Heather walking around at home in her pyjamas, but she's just as lovely.

The weather was great and really helped make the day. After we had finished up on the sixth floor, we made our way down to the restaurant level in the same building and had dinner. Then it was time to move to the second round in true Korean fashion, and we headed out to a new bar with a special reservation, beachside at Gwangali.

Part 3 coming soon.

Come and Halva go if you think you're hard enough!


I've just been looking through some of our photos and found this happy memory.

Sarah discovered this Halva outside Dongzhimen Subway Station in Beijing, where dozens of Uighers were selling massive blocks of it from the back of bicycles.

Resembling an oversized breakfast bar, this Halva consisted of cashew nuts, almonds, peanuts, goji berries and dried apricot, held together with a luxurious honey cement.

Although it started of soft, chewy and pliable, the halva set like concrete over the coming days. The fear of losing a tooth, however, was nothing compared to the rich reward. Sarah and I spent several days munching through our own breezeblock.

Pure nuts.

South Korea Trip- Jinhae 진해

Alright you can check out the video of my trip from Busan to Jinhae in South Korea. The trip in total was 122 kms. I rode the #2 highway to Jinhae and back. On the trip I checked out several parks including Dream Park, Energy Park and Marine Park. I got to ride in an electric car and almost saw a wall fortress. I hope everyone is well. I am currently in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It is snowing here which seems crazy for October. Well at least I get to leave in a week. Each video is a one day trip. I start the day with no plan other than a final destination. By the end of the day I have compiled 2-4 hours of footage on two cameras. I then cut that footage into the five minute video you see here. The video features creative commons music by Sean Fournier- Broken Stereo featured on http://www.jamendo.com. After I was unable to get into the wall fortress. I saw a couple of large things run across the road. They appeared to be tarantulas. I was only able to get some crappy video of it. I have not been able to confirm if there are tarantulas in Korea. Below is some poor stills from the video.

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