Announcement: New Q&A System

Dear everyone who sent the Korean questions -- the Korean has not forgotten about you. But the Korean tries to answer all questions in the order received, and the delay is pretty long (right now around 2 months.) The delay is especially long because of the Korea-Japan series, and since there will be another series about language, it's going to be longer.

So when you do send a question that is time-sensitive, please indicate that you want to jump ahead of the line, and the Korean will consider it. Otherwise, expect roughly 2 months of delay. In any case, the Korean will notify you when your question has been answered. Thank you for sending in questions, and thank you for reading!

Korean Language Lesson Series – Methodology

Dear Korean,

I am a Korean-American in my 30s and I didn't learn the Korean language when I was a kid, except little tidbits. I want to learn more and someday speak fluently. What books, methods would you recommend?

Keep on trucking!

- Eager Beaver

Dear Eager Beaver,

The Korean Mother is a high school Korean language teacher. After going through a few different books, she found Integrated Korean by University of Hawaii Press to be the best textbook. The Korean has no reason to doubt her judgment -- she has been teaching foreign language for 25 years. (The Korean Mother was a high school English teacher back in Korea.)

The Korean himself learned a few foreign languages from scratch – English, Spanish, and currently Chinese. (Please, hold the applause. Puedo solamente hablar el mas basico del Espanol, and xianzai zhege xingqi shi wo de di wuge xingqi xue zhongwen.) Each person learns things differently, but here is one man’s method of learning a new language.

The method can be summarized into the following: Learn the grammar first, while memorizing a ton of vocabulary. Construct a lot of different sentences by plugging in the vocabulary, and memorize those sentences as well. Speak, listen, and write at the same time.

The drawback of this method is that it takes a lot of rote memorization. But the Korean believes that rote memorization is inevitable in language learning. An average six year old child knows 13,000 words and idioms. You have to catch up to that number somehow, and it’s not going to come to you naturally.

But the Korean recognizes that Korean language education in America has a pretty shaky foundation. There isn’t a huge worldwide demand, so there isn’t too many studies and research about how to teach it effectively. It’s especially difficult for European language speakers, since the grammar is radically different.

Therefore, the Korean will run Korean Language Lesson Series from time to time, trying to explain in a way that hopefully is easy to understand. In the meantime, if you have any question about Korean language, you know what to do – ask the Korean.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Read This, Fans of The Departed, and Learn the Truth.

At the end of a previous post, the Korean promised that he would pour down some raging shitstorm upon Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences if The Departed wins any Oscar. Well, The Departed won 4, so here is the shitstorm, as promised.

Here is the simple reason why any Academy won by The Departed is bullshit. The Departed is based on a Hong Kong movie released in 2002, called Infernal Affairs. And by "is based on", the Korean means that "plagiarized down to every relevant detail."

But it goes beyond that simple fact. This is really about what the Academy sees its award show as. Once upon a time, American movies ruled the world. They still do to a certain extent, but certainly not to the same degree. Just like other American inventions of baseball and basketball, the world has caught up with America, and fantastic movies are made outside of U.S. every year.

At this point, the Academy had to choose. Will it continue favoring American movies and try to select the best picture among them, or will it open up its doors to foreign films and try to award the true world champion? If the Academy cares about the global reputation of Oscars, the answer is obvious. And by and large, the Academy made the right moves, making this Oscars the most international one ever. Pan's Labyrinth, a Spanish film, won 3 Oscars, next highest to The Departed. All these were encouraging signs. But by showering The Departed with 4 Oscars, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Editing, the Academy took two steps back for every step it had taken forward. Instead of awarding the true global best, the Academy coronated its knockoff.

The Korean has no doubt that Martin Scorsese is a great director. In fact, the Korean believes that Scorsese, with The Aviator, should have won over Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby in 2005. But even the greatest director is capable of mailing it in, and mailing in Scorsese did.

First, the decision to remake Infernal Affairs was questionable to begin with. If it were an obscure, small budget movie, or a very old movie, that Scorsese had to go out of his way to discover, then it's understandable. But Infernal Affairs was none of those things. It was one of the highest grossing Hong Kong movies EVER. EVERYONE in Asia has watched it. The thing that blows the Korean away is the fact that Infernal Affairs opened in 2002, while The Departed opened in 2006. Given that it takes several years to make a movie, it means that Scorsese decided to remake Infernal Affairs as soon as it opened! How can this possibly be?

But the Korean still had hope, going to watch The Departed. After all, it’s Martin Scorsese, for crying out loud. He’s the guy who made Goodfellas! Sitting through The Departed, the Korean desperately hoped for something different to show. And there were a few differences between Infernal Affairs and The Departed. (Read on, there are no spoilers.) They were:

1. Infernal Affairs is set in Hong Kong, while The Departed is set in Boston.
2. Everyone in Infernal Affairs is Asian and speaks Cantonese, while everyone The Departed is white and speaks English (with Boston accents.)
3. The character played by Mark Wahlberg is new, and so is the ending involving him. The last 30 seconds of The Departed is completely new.
4. The ways Leonardo DiCaprio/Tony Leung character communicates with the police at the deal are different.
5. Jack Nicholson character is a little more fleshed out than Eric Tsang character. (Infernal Affairs 2 actually fleshes out Eric Tsang character a lot more.) Matt Damon character is also a little more fleshed out than Andy Lau character.

That’s it. Seriously, those are all. Which one of those 5 points screams “major changes”? On the other hand, so many of the major storytelling/stylistic points were directly lifted from Infernal Affairs to The Departed. (Okay, now we have spoilers.) Such as:

1. Making the two moles look alike.
2. The way the two moles almost meet, at the theatre.
3. The way the deal was bugged (computer chip replaces drugs.)
4. The way the chief dies.
5. The way there were two moles each in the end, and the way they become known.
6. The usage of glasses and blinds in the police HQ.
7. The setting and camera works on the roof, the movie’s climax.

The Korean can go on, but here is the point: The Departed is no more than a shameless knockoff of Infernal Affairs. If Scorsese did not bribe Andy Lau and Alex Mak into making this movie, he would certainly lose the lawsuit for plagiarism.

Now, a question must be asked: Why couldn’t Infernal Affairs simply open in the theatres of America, and make The Departed, which would open in mere 4 years later, appear utterly unimaginative?

Answer: Read the differences points 1 and 2 above. The Korean hates playing the race card, but really there cannot be any other explanation. Infernal Affairs, by all accounts a spectacular movie (reflected by the success of its knockoff,) got robbed BECAUSE IT DOES NOT HAVE WHITE PEOPLE IN IT. The same thing happened with The Ring and The Grudge. Only Asian movies that escaped this fate are the martial-arts based ones, i.e. the ilk of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, because it would be completely ridiculous to have those movies set in ancient Boston and have Chuck Norris flying across the screen.

What drives the Korean completely insane is the thought process behind the decisions to remake Asian movies. “Surely Asians can do some things that white people can’t, but those things cannot possibly include being an undercover cop that tests your inner goodness!!” Never mind that the movie won 23 different awards all over the world, and was wildly successful in cultures and languages that are as radically different as China, Japan, and Korea!

But it's not just about the assumption about Asian movies; it's also about the assumption that American audience is stupid. “There is no way in hell American audience is receptive to the emotions of fear, love, ambition and redemption portrayed by these yellow-skinned, slant-eyed chinks. We had better slap together a cast of white actors and a white director so that they may properly translate to the Americans whatever these chinks are trying to show.”

If you are an American movie lover, you should be insulted.

God, I'm still pissed.

p.s. The best part? When The Departed won the Best Screenplay and the screen writers (more like translators) walked up toward the stage, the PA system announced "The Departed was based on a Japanese movie, Infernal Affairs." That made the Korean jump out of the couch and scream, "IT'S NOT JAPANESE YOU IGNORANT FUCKS!!!"

The Korean has been a little bit harsh on the Japanese, especially with the recent Korea-Japan relation series, but he would like the readers to know that he was pulling for Rinko Kikuchi for Best Supporting Actress. The Korean also likes Japanese movies and cartoons.

Looking for Korean Men?

If you had noticed, there is a little tag on the bottom of the tool bar on the right, called "sitemeter". Sitemeter is this neat thing where the Korean may track how many visitors Ask A Korean! has had, and so on.

One of the features of Sitemeter is that the Korean can see what terms people searched on Google or Yahoo to get to this blog. Overwhelming majority of the search terms, obviously, is "ask a korean" or "ask a korean blog". A search term that keeps on showing up, albeit in small numbers, is "korean fucking". If you were looking for Korean porn and ended up here, the Korean apologizes for disappointing you. But shame on you for employing such a primitive method to search for Korean porn, which is so prevalent all over the Internet it's impossible to miss.

(It is slightly disturbing that there are people specifically looking for Korean porn, as opposed to Asian porn. Let's move on.)

But somehow the next most common search term for people who got here is "Korean men". The Korean doesn't really understand why or how, since when the Korean googled "Korean men," this blog did not show up in the first 10 pages of results. These must be some really persistent people. It is also interesting that a lot of these searchers are from Taiwan, Singapore, Philippines, etc. (Sitemeter also tells the Korean where a visitor is logging in from.)

Well, if you have any questions about Korean men, this is the place to be. The Korean doesn't care how bad your English is -- just ask the Korean! Click on the link on top right, and let's hear from you, Korean-men-seekers.

Korea-Japan Relation Saga, Part III – WWII

See other posts in this series: Part I Part II Part IV Part V

This post is a particularly difficult for the Korean to write because, after all, he received a good amount of education in Korea, especially when he was young and impressionable. It is difficult for the Korean to be objective, but he will try his best.

We are still dealing with the question as to why Koreans hate Japanese so much. If you only read one post out of this series, the Korean recommends this one. Although there is plenty of bad blood that goes back thousands of years (as the Korean illustrated in earlier posts,) the old bad blood only comes back because the modern relation between the two countries was so incredibly bad.

First, some historical background. By early 20th century, Japan was emerging as a world-scale superpower both in terms of its economy and military strength. Its status was simply unrivaled in East and Southeast Asia, which produced no other nation that measured up to Japan. Subsequently, Japan began colonizing Korea and China. Korea was annexed to Japan in 1910, and was not liberated until 1945 after Japan had lost World War II.

It is important to realize that the nature of Japan’s 36 year rule of Korea was brutal and exploitative, in a way that was fundamentally different from most European colonization. European countries colonized areas that were not exactly “nations” in a modern sense, like India and sub-Saharan Africa. In India, for example, there was no shared sense of nationhood between Bengalis in the north and Tamils in the south. (In fact, they don’t even speak the same language, and to this day must use English to communicate.)

On the other hand, Korea had a very strong sense of nationhood that lasted for thousands of years; furthermore, Korea had despised its island neighbor for its lack of cultural achievements. Japan’s rule over Korea was therefore completely unacceptable to Koreans everywhere, and Koreans rebelled in a scale that was incomparable to any other colonized regions in the world. In reaction, in order to maintain its colony, the Japanese colonial government was constantly on surveillance, and its brutality escalated over the period of colonization, peaking at the end of World War II.

When one (especially a Western one) hears the words “Atrocities of World War II”, the first response would always be “Holocaust.” And there is no doubt that it is a good answer. On the other hand, such a focus on Holocaust tends to blind us from other atrocities of World War II. And it is a historical fact that many of those atrocities were committed by Japan, upon Korea and China. This is not to diminish the horror of Holocaust. There certainly has not been any mass murder that was as wide-scale, efficient, and systematic (and therefore horrific) as Holocaust. The atrocities committed by Japan are smaller in scale (because they didn’t quite kill 10 million people) and less systematic (because some of them essentially involved soldiers running amok while the government didn’t do anything, e.g. the Rape of Nanking, whereas the Holocaust was actively organized by the government.) But the Korean believes that the Japanese atrocities are at least as depraved as the Holocaust, if not more. It’s like trying to compare Timothy McVeigh and Charles Manson. McVeigh killed a lot more people after a lot more preparation, but Manson tortured his victims.

Here is the list of atrocities committed by Japan to Korea. They are organized by the Korean’s subjective ordering of least depraved to most depraved. Read on, and see if you agree with what the Korean said so far. For the things for which Wikipedia has an entry, the Korean provided a link. That does not mean that the Korean thinks the Wikipedia entries are entirely correct; they are there just for the sake of reference.

Various Cultural Affronts – the biggest thing under this category would be Japan’s attempt to change Korean names into Japanese style names, known as Chang-ssi-gae-myeong. As the Korean explained before, family name is extremely important to Koreans, and forcing to change them is an intolerable insult. Japan also stole innumerable treasures from Korea, such as porcelain products, paintings, old books, and so on.

Another affront was more subtle. The Japanese colonial government turned the main palace of the Korean Emperor into a zoo. Many palace buildings were torn down – the most notable is Gyeong-bok-gung, half of which was torn down to make way for the colonial government building. Still another is borderline hokey. The colonial government drove in hundreds of steel shafts into major mountain peaks in Korea, under the belief that doing so will cripple the spirit of the land. The shafts were still being dug out in Korea to this day.

Murder of Empress Myeong-Seong – Empress Myeong-seong was a strong-minded wife of Emperor Go-jong. She was a shrewd politician and a diplomat, who often tried to use other superpowers (mostly Russia) in the region to check the rising influence of Japan upon Korea. A Japanese lieutenant general (with or without the backing of the Japanese government is unclear) commissioned what is essentially a band of Japanese thugs to enter the imperial palace in broad daylight and stabbed the Empress to death. Her body was carried away into a corner of the palace and burned by the same band. This historical fact was recently recreated in a musical “Last Empress”, which played in the U.S. in 1998. Read the Wikipedia article here. (Scroll down to “Eul-mi Incident.”)

Kanto Massacre – in 1923, there was a massive earthquake in Kanto, Japan, which killed more than 50,000 people. In the aftermath of the earthquake, the Japanese government declared martial law, and issued a special advisory that Koreans were conspiring to commit murder, rape, arson, and poisoning the wells. This created a mob riot and massacring of Koreans living in Japan. Up to 6,000 Koreans are believed to have been killed. Read the Wikipedia article here. (Scroll down to “post quake violence”.)

Forced Labor – As World War II intensified, Japanese government drafted Korean men for its war efforts. The number ranges anywhere between 300,000 to 1 million. They were mostly put in hard labor, usually in mines or factories. Quite a few of them (estimates range from 20,000 to 200,000) were killed or injured in mines or factories with substandard (to put it nicely) labor conditions.

Torture and Massacre – Japanese colonial government liberally tortured those who were arrested on the suspicion of independence movement for Korea. The most well-documented case is that of Yoo, Guan-soon, who was a 19-year-old student of Ewha School when she played a key role in organizing the March 1st Movement, the largest mass-protest against the Japanese rule in 1919. Yoo was arrested and died in prison; her teachers at Ewha were able to retrieve her body because Ewha was established by Americans and Principal James Fry of Ewha threatened diplomatic actions if the body was not returned. The returned body of Yoo was in six pieces; her scalp was missing; her nose and ears had been cut off, and all of her finger and toenails were plucked off.

Brutal suppression of independence movement was not limited to individuals. In response to the March 1st Movement, in April 5th, 1919, Japanese military police marched into a village of Je-am-li, a village known for its Christian-based independence movement. The police rounded up roughly 30 Christians in the village into the town church, locked the doors and set the building on fire. 22 died trapped in the building, and 8 were shot outside of the church as they tried to escape.

Comfort Women – As World War II raged on, the Japanese military, directly and indirectly, rounded up between 100,000 and 200,000 women to be used sex slaves, euphemistically called “Comfort Women”, for the Japanese soldiers. These women were usually raped 20 times a day, and as many as 40 times a day, according to accounts from survivors. The women were mostly Korean and Chinese, but there were also a few Dutch and Australian (read: white) women kidnapped from Dutch Indies and various Pacific islands. Read the Wikipedia article here.

Unit 731 – this one is so incredibly depraved that the Korean can’t even go into describing it. He will only say that it was a secret medical unit of the Japanese military, conducting various human experiments. The Wikipedia entry is here. Just read it.

So, why do Koreans hate the Japanese?

How can they not?

-EDIT Oct. 21, 2008 7:07 p.m. EST- While the Korean put this part of the Korea-Japan saga as a representative sample, please remember that this is only one part of a four-part series. The Korean has been noticing that many of the comments here could have been addressed simply by reading other parts of the series. Therefore, please read all four parts before expressing any opinion. The Korean believes his readers are intelligent: waiting to grasp the full picture before opening one's mouth is the least that an intelligent person can do.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Sae-hae Bok Mah-ni Baht-u-se-yo! -- Part II

The past weekend was Lunar New Year (the 18th, to be exact). If you call it Chinese New Year, the Korean, along with the Vietnamese (whoever and wherever s/he may be) will kick your ass. Just like Christmas is not European Winter Solstice, Lunar New Year is not Chinese.

Lunar New Year is called seol-nal in Korean. It is also called gu-jeong, in contrast to shin-jeong (the Solar New Year, i.e. January 1st.) Lunar New Year is a national holiday, and in fact it's one of the only two holidays in Korea in which people get three days off. (Chu-seok, the Harvest Festival, is the other one.)

A lot of things happen in Lunar New Year in Korea. The most notable one is the mass exodus of people from Seoul to the rest of the country, since you are supposed to go back to your hometown and hold a service (je-sa) for your ancestors. The Korean's hometown (which is actually the Korean Father's hometown) is near Daejeon. Normally it takes about 1.5 hours to drive from Seoul, but we have taken as long as 5 hours getting to the old house at one point.

Sometimes people will wear traditional Korean clothes. (Traditional Korean clothes are called han-bok, but the clothes you wear on the new year's day is called seol-bim.) More generally, every one eats rice cake soup, or ddeok-gook. (Pictured below.) Apparently, unless you have ddeok-gook on new year, you don't turn one year older. (The fact which, the Korean thinks, would have encouraged Koreans to stop eating it.)

Often, seol-nal rivals Christmas as children's favorite holiday because of se-bae. Se-bae is a traditional deep bow (jeol) to your elders (click on the picture to see the motion), and the elders are supposed to give the children who bowed money (called se-bae-don.)

The amount of se-bae-don varies widely; the Korean Extended Family is generally dirt-poor, so the Korean as a child would usually get about 1000 won (=$1) per bow, netting out at around $30 at the end of the season. On the other hand, other children at the Korean's school (which was in a very rich area) would usually earn around $150, and sometimes as much as $1000. According to news reports, the current going rate for middle school children is apparently at about $20.

Seol-nal also involves traditional games. The fan-favorite is yut-nol-i, which involves throwing four sticks and advancing your piece on the board depending on the combination of how many sticks landed on the front side and how many landed on the back. Yeon-nal-li-gi ("kite flying") is also a traditional thing to do on seol-nal.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Military Stories

(If you are not familiar with the concept of Goon-dae, please read this post first.)

A reader sent the Korean this:

My daddy loves to tell his military stories! The most traumatic to me as a young girl (regretfully, his firstborn was a girl, and by over five years - although he adjusted by making me a badass) was the story about digging tunnels through snow in his underwear in the bitter Korean winters.

The most traumatic story about The War, which was always told when I would complain about my writing callus on my right middle finger, was that the Korean men who wanted to avoid being drafted into the war would cut off the top joint so as not to show that they were "learned." I think this story is a little questionable - but it was also echoed by John Irving in "A Prayer for Owen Meany."

Also, we used to torment my younger brother together by telling him to be tough because his military time was impending. This continued until my brother was about 14 or so and the weeping was no longer funny. Like I said - my daddy made me a badass.

Great column- informative and funny!

Korean Girl
Birmingham, Alabama

Honestly, the Korean is amazed by the fact that Korean people are alive in Birmingham, AL. The Korean's roommate in his freshman year in college is from Decatur, AL (which the Korean Former Roommate stresses that it is the fourth largest city in Alabama -- as if that means anything -- and home to the second largest Wal-Mart in America.) The Korean is invited to his wedding, and the Roommate told the Korean to bring a rope cutter, so that the Korean may get down from the tree after the Roommate's Klan friends attempt to hang him.

The Korean is certain that naked trench-digging must have happened during the Korean War. The Korean War was a low-tech, trench warfare, and the provisions for the Gook-goon ("National Army" of South Korea, as opposed to In-min-goon, "People's Army" of North Korea) were pretty crappy. So maybe not quite naked, but certainly in thin or tattered clothes.

But the callus part can't be correct; you need to cut off your index finger to avoid the army, so that you can't pull a trigger. (That is exactly what happens in Prayer for Owen Meany -- a good novel by John Irving.) The correct version of the story is this: during the Korean War, the learned men, who are the only people who developed a learning callus in their middle finger in those times, cut off their middle finger because the People's Army would kill anyone who is learned, because learned = no physical labor = rich = bourgeois oppressor.

But this is more of an urban legend. It is true that sporadically, the People's Army rounded up the landowners and learned men of a village and killed them all. But if the middle finger-severing was a common occurrence, there must have been a lot of old, learned folks missing a finger, and that is simply not the case. At best, it may have happened to no more than a few people, and the story spread due to its preposterous gruesomeness.

At any rate, thank you Korean Girl for sending in a Goon-dae story! Over the winter, the Korean hung out with some friends who finished their service, and again heard an earful of military stories. Here are the two funniest ones:

1. One friend of the Korean's friend served as a driver for a 3-star general. On the first day of his assignment, he was extremely nervous, because in the military, a general can punch out God. As he drove, military protocol required him to say "byeon-sok hap-ni-da!" ("switching gears!") every time he switched gears. Instead, he was so nervous that he ended up saying "byeon-sin hap-ni-da! byeon-sin hap-ni-da!" ("transforming! transforming!") After the unfortunate driver said that a few times, the general retorted, "hap-che-neun an-ha-nyah?" ("Do we also combine together?" -- a la Voltron.)

2. The Korean's friend served as a military photographer. One day, one sergeant was supposed to receive a medal from a 4-star general, and the Korean's friend was present to take the picture. Before the sergeant received the medal, he was supposed to first salute the general, then state "Byeong-jang, Kim Han-soo!" ("Sergeant Kim Han-soo!") Instead, he got so nervous in front of the general that he ended up saying "Byeong-jang, Kim Byeong-jang!" ("Sergeant Kim Sergeant!" -- this probably happened because in the Korean military, people address you by your last name, followed by your rank.)

The Korean is still waiting to hear hilarious Goon-dae stories, so please readers, email away!

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Happy Commercially Made-up Gift Giving Day!

(Okay fine, this post is a day late. Last time the Korean checked, ain't nobody paying him to keep up the blog, so the posts will come when the Korean damn well pleases.)

You think Valentine's Day is commercialized? You should see what's going on in East Asia - as with cars and electronics, they took something from America and kicked it up a notch. The trend really started in Japan and spread over to Korea; the Korean is not sure if China or Taiwan is on board yet.

This is what goes on: on Valentine's Day, only women are supposed give gifts to men. What about men? Well, they have their own day on March 14th, called "White Day". (Can it sound more made-up? Seriously.) And the two days are not just about taking your significant other to dinner and buying things; the focus is actually more on revealing your secret crush. Hence, the quintessential Valentine's Day scene in a Japanese anime is in which a girl shily hands a boy a box of chocolate with a card on top, and running the hell away. (An aside: what about gay people? It's not fair that they only get one day while straight people get two. They should either make Gay Pride Day into a gift-giving occasion, or designate April 14th as "Purple Day". The Korean is certain that Japanese card company executives are already on this.)

One of the most amusing sights that the Korean has ever seen regularly occur on White Day, in front of Ewha University in Seoul. Ewha is a premier women's university, and men who are not employed by the school are not allowed to enter the school grounds (except a few extremely lucky souls, mostly exchange students from outside Korea.) This is because Ewha was established in the late 19th century when women getting any education was highly disapproved; no man (usually a father of a student) could enter the school in order to drag the student out and put her back to the kitchen.

The rule survives today, which lends to the sight. On White Day, outside of the front gate of Ewha, you can see litterally hundreds of young men, each carrying flowers and candies and awkwardly dressed in their best, waiting for their girlfriends to come out of the school. The most amusing thing is that across the street from the gate, there is a building that has a set of wide steps in front of it, like a platform. That platform is completely filled with men carrying flowers, standing on their tiptoes to get a better view of the gate, many of them on their cell phones talking with their girlfriends. The men themselves don't realize it, but to a passerby, the sight is incredibly hilarious. In fact, the group as a whole was given a nickname - ba-bo bu-dae ("the idiot brigade.")

Well, it's not White Day yet, but this whole Valentine's Day thing is made up anyway, so who cares when the Korean gives gifts? So enjoy this gift from the Korean - a chocolate heart! You can't say Korean men aren't sweet.

-ADDENDUM: 02/16/2007 9:08 p.m.- The Korean hates these stupid holidays so he did not really want to elaborate more on this, but the two commenters forced his hand. So here is the full list of made-up holidays for every month. This is a direct translation from some random website (except 2/14 and 3/14, whose contents are abbreviated), and the Korean's editorials are marked separately. In other words, he's not making this up.

Jan. 14 - "Diary Day," the day on which you give a gift of diary to your significant other, to make new year's resolutions.

Feb. 14 - Valentine's Day. Girls give chocolate.

March 14 - White Day. Guys give candies. (the Korean: the word "candy" in Asia does not include chocolate; it only refers to sugary things.)

April 14 - "Black Day," the day on which single people get together to eat jja-jang-myeon (the Korean: noodles in black bean sauce; a "Chinese" food that is only available in Korea, derivative of Dan Dan Mien) together, in order to console one another and resolve to escape singledom.

May 14 - "Rose Day" for couples. Give roses to each other. "Yellow Day" for singles; unless one wears yellow and eats curry on this day, one cannot escape from singledom.

June 14 - "Kiss Day," the day on which couples who met on the 14th days kiss (the Korean: because they apprently kiss once a year.)

July 14 - "Silver Day," the day on which 1. couples exchange silver "promise" rings, and 2. couples introduce their significant other to their seonbae (the Korean: senior in school or work) or parents while having them pay for the date.

Aug. 14 - "Green Day," the day on which couples visit a forest and see greenery. (The Korean: whoever thought of this line of bullshit started to run out ideas at this point. See more below.)

Sept. 14 - "Music Day/Photo Day," the day on which couples visit a club or some place with music with friends in order to make their relationship public.

Oct. 14 - "Wine Day," the day on which couples have wine, because wine drinking is the thing to do in autumn.

Nov. 14 - "Orange Day/Movie Day," the day on which couples watch a movie together while having some orange juice. (the Korean: seriously, he is not making this up.)

Dec. 14 - "Hug Day," the day on which couples are allowed to hug each other. (The Korean: variation of theme from Kiss Day.)

Also, there are some miscellaneous days like Pepero Day, which is Nov. 11 (11/11). Pepero is a snack that is a knockoff of Japanese snack called Pocky; it's a thin, long stick of biscuit covered in chocolate. Apparently 11/11 looks like four Peperos.

The Korean was hesitant to put all that in because honestly, the Korean has never seen anyone actually keeping up with all the bullshit up there, except a few deranged young women. Valentine's Day and White Day are big. Black Day is somewhat known in reaction to the two couples days in two months, but no one ever takes that seriously; at best, it's a stupid excuse for single friends to get together and share their misery. (It would make a hilarious episode of Sex and the City, with the four women eating Chinese noodles.) Pepero Day is also somewhat known because the idea is kinda funny, and like commenter Simon said, because there is publicity from the company that makes the thing. (See, e.g., www.pepero.co.kr if you know how to read Korean.)

Other days are completely made up, and no Korean would actually know about them if they are asked. It's just a whole line of elaborate crap that little kids tend to get excited about, like Pokemon Cards. Now, let us all forget that we ever had this discussion. Ever.

Korea-Japan Relation Saga, Part II: Pre-Modern Times

(See Part I here.)

Here is one thing that Americans tend not to understand about the world: most countries in the world have a very long history, and the modern citizens of those countries identify with their history 100 percent. For example, as much as Americans learn about the heroics of George Washington, relatively few people can fully identify with and remember his victories and defeats. Our hearts don’t sink when we hear about the travails of Bunker Hill, and we (on average) don’t get too pumped at the image of Washington crossing the Delaware.

It’s different for the rest of the world, and the rest of the world certainly includes Korea. Here is an example: the oldest sons of the Park family each have a set of roughly 30 books that describe their lineage, called jok-bo (the “family chart”). Jok-bo lists every single male member of the Park clan and their wives, tracing from the very first Park who was born in 69 B.C. With the knowledge that their family line literally stretches over several millennia, ancient history in Korea is never “ancient history” in a way Americans use the word. No matter how long ago an event may have happened, the event never loses relevance in the collective consciousness of Koreans.

(Incidentally, this is probably why so many popular Korean dramas are set in ancient times. One of the most popular dramas in Korea now is Ju-Mong, which is about half-mythical, half-historical figure believed to have lived around 30 B.C. Somehow, the Korean thinks that a drama about the Founding Fathers won’t do as well in America.)

So what happened in the ancient history between Korea and Japan? Naturally, given that it is a long history, there were good times and the bad. The important thing is that, because the modern relation between Korea and Japan was so egregiously bad, Koreans tend to learn in school the points of the history that make themselves feel superior and villainize Japanese.

First, about the “making Koreans feel superior” part. Koreans tend to stress that Korea has always been culturally superior to Japan, and to some degree it is true. Since the beginning of time until around 18th century, China was the cultural center of East Asia, and Korea was closer to China than Japan. Therefore, Korea was undoubtedly superior to Japan in such arts as understanding ancient Chinese texts, calligraphy, china-making, etc. that were fashionable in China. Around 5th century, Baekje, one of the three kingdoms that occupied the Korean Peninsula, played a large role in transmitting Chinese characters, pottery, Buddhism, and so on. (Baekje was eventually defeated by Shilla, another one of the three kingdoms, and some Korean scholars argue that the current Japanese monarchy is in fact the lineage of Baekje kings in exile.)

Even past the ancient time, Korea sent masters of those arts to Japan to teach the locals as late as until the 17th century. Lost in this discussion is that Japan was quietly becoming the leading economic power of East Asia, since Japan was more receptive toward accepting goods and ideas from Europe. In fact, the relation between Korea and Japan are similar to the relation between France and Britain as the Industrial Revolution was going on. Britain was certainly getting wealthier, but it still looked to France for haute couture.

As to “villianizing Japanese”, there is no better place to turn than the Japanese invasion of 1592, known in Korea as Im-jin Wae-ran (“The Japanese War in the year of Imjin”). Wikipedia has done an excellent job describing the war, so the Korean will leave the detailed account to them. Here, the Korean will only describe why this war, among many wars that Koreans suffered, particularly stays with Koreans.

First, the war was the most recent large-scale conflict, and in fact probably the largest-scale war that Korea has ever fought, until Korean War. Although Korea has been invaded many times over, the 1592 invasion was the most recent occasion on which Korea truly stood at the brink of a complete occupation by a foreign country. Second, it is particularly difficult to accept that it was Japan, to which Korea has been culturally superior for thousands of years, that almost overran the entire country. Japan in fact kidnapped many skilled Korean artisans, reflecting the fact that they were in fact culturally inferior.

Third, the Korean victory involved some incredible heroism; the most notable one is Admiral Yi Sunsin, who has never lost a naval battle, although on the land the Korean army was being completely overrun. In his most famous battle at Myongryang Straits, he took on the Japanese fleet of 133 battleships with the last remaining 13 battleships of the Korean navy, only to emerge victorious by destroying 120 Japanese ships. Since Admiral Yi’s campaign was so incredible, his portrait is on Korean money (on 100 won coin), his statue stands in front of the largest road in Korea, and numerous novels, movies and TV series about him have been made. In this light, Koreans can never forget that Japan is the enemy. It’s just like Nazi Germany, actually – as long as Schindler’s List and Indiana Jones are popular, it will never be forgotten that Germans were Nazis and bad guys.

Speaking of World War II (hey, look at that segway!), it must be noted that Koreans don’t normally hold a grudge for over 400 years. However, they can certainly hold a grudge for about 60 years, especially if the depravity of the acts that caused the grudge is simply beyond imagination. It is fair to say that all the ancient history discussed in this part would have been "ancient history" if the events in the early 20th century did not happen between Korea and Japan. But it is undeniable that Japan perpetrated some horrible acts to Koreans in the early 20th century, which makes Koreans continue to ruminate upon the war that happened 400 years ago.

p.s. Commenter Ginny got the right answer for the last part’s question. There has been a dispute over the name of the sea on the east of Korea and on the west of Japan; Koreans want the name “East Sea”, while Japanese want the name “Sea of Japan”. Read the Wikipedia article here.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Ask A Korean! News: KFC - Not from Kentucky

There are so many delicious Korean foods, but you probably wouldn't have guessed that fried chicken is one of them. Well, Korean fried chicken is really unlike any other in the world, and it's finally available in New York. The New York Times carried an article about Korean-style fried chicken places that are now popping up in New York, and it's currently the third most emailed article in the Food Section. Here is a snippet of the article:

"For crunch, American-style fried chicken relies on a thick, well-seasoned crust, often made even thicker by soaking the chicken pieces beforehand in buttermilk. When that crust is nubbly and evenly browned, and the chicken meat is cooked through, the chicken is sublime. But too often, the flesh is still raw when the crust is cooked, or the skin never cooks all the way through, leaving a flabby layer of skin between the meat and the crust.

Korean-style fried chicken is radically different, reflecting an Asian frying technique that renders out the fat in the skin, transforming it into a thin, crackly and almost transparent crust. (Chinese cooks call this “paper fried chicken.”) The chicken is unseasoned, barely dredged in very fine flour and then dipped into a thin batter before going into the fryer."

After the chicken is fried, Koreans either eat it plain or have it basted (not drenched!) with sweet and spicy garlic sauce. It was one of the Korean Family's favorite foods, and it's finally available in New York!

Naturally, the Korean and the Korean Girlfriend will visit one of them tonight. See you all at K-town.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Super Bowl!

The Korean is more of a college football fan, but it's a big day so why not?

Super Bowl XLI is meaningful for the Korean Family because this would be the first Super Bowl that the Korean Father would ever be watching. The Korean Father loves sports, but could not get into football because 1. there is no pro football team in LA, 2. the rules are too complicated. But over the last year's bowl season, the Korean taught the Korean Father how to enjoy America's most popular sport, and the Korean Father now loves football.

Mr. Goodell, (the NFL Commissioner if you didn't know,) the Korean really hopes you would hear this somehow. Do you want to spread football to other countries? Then bring a fucking franchise to Los Angeles. Do you know how many Koreans are Dodgers fans because Dodgers brought Chan-Ho Park? (The Korean hates him because he's an overpaid prick, but that's a different story.) Do you ever wonder why there are 1.6 billion Houston Rockets fans? Currently Pittsburgh Steelers is probably the only NFL team that any Korean knows because Super Bowl XL MVP Hines Ward is half-Korean. A hypothetical LA team would naturally recruit heavily on Asian and Hispanic population to appeal to the local demographic, and eventually people in Asia and South America would be watching football! It's that simple! Scrap that NFL Europe bullshit, it's not gonna work.

(If you think there is no Asian American football players to be recruited, think again. The current NCAA career passing yardage leader is Timmy Chang from University of Hawaii. One of USC's starting tailbacks is Emmanuel Moody, who is half-Korean. As there will be more Asian Americans in America, there will certainly be a rise in Asian American football players.)

At any rate, this game will be fun. The Korean Father wanted to make a wager with his friend, so the Korean advised him on the bet. Here is the Korean's pick - Colts 24, Bears 21.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

-ADDENDUM: 02/08 9:02 p.m.- Reader Lester M. directed the Korean to the presence of Dat Nguyen, who was an All-American middle linebacker at Texas A&M and played for Dallas Cowboys from 1999 to 2005. Honestly, this is the first year that the Korean ever watched or cared about pro football, and Nguyen's collegiate career was before the Korean's time. But nonetheless, the Korean salutes to Dat Nguyen, who overcame the "undersized" label many times over to become a prolific linebacker.

Gangsters and Thugs, Criminals and Hoods

Dear Korean,

I've been doing some reading for a project and came across a reference to the Korean mafia. Can you give us a little primer on them? What makes them different from other organized crime syndicates? Their history? What types of services they provide? How they are structured? How they are seen by the Korean society? How influential they are in contemporary Korean politics? how, and if, they operate trans-nationally (especially in Southeast Asia)?

HHC


Dear HHC,

First, let the Korean direct you to Curtis Milhaupt's The Dark Side of Private Ordering: An Institutional and Empirical Analysis of Organized Crime. (If you have LexisNexis, the citation is 67 U. Chi. L. Rev. 41.) It is the most excellent article that the Korean has ever read about organized crime.

Milhaupt mainly discusses Yakuza, or the Japanese mafia, and his big idea is this: "The activities of organized criminal firms closely track inefficiencies in formal legal structures, including both inefficient substantive laws and a state-induced shortage of legal professionals and other rights-enforcement agents." In plain English, it means that organized crime syndicates do not randomly choose their illegal enterprises; they in fact choose enterprises that deal with inefficiency in the market created by the law.

(The Korean's favorite part of the article: "Identifying members of Japanese organized criminal firms is not difficult. ... As Joseph Castellano (the son of reputed mob boss Paul Castellano) put it, "What is a Gambino crime family? . . . Does this Gambino crime family have an office? Does the office have a plaque on the door that says, 'Gambino crime family'?" In Japan, the answers would be, in reverse order, "yes," "yes," and "read our rules and creed.")

As a quick example in the U.S., take an illegal gambling/bookmaking operation. There is a market demand for gambling, but the supply is legally prohibited in most states. Therefore, we have an inefficient market in which the demand far outstrips the supply. Organized crime syndicates fill this gap, provide the extra supply and bring the market to an equilibrium.

So there is the answer for your first question. What is the difference between Korean and other country's mafias? Nothing. Cross-national studies of organized crime have shown that all criminal syndicates show remarkable similarities, even down to the terms they use. Cosa Nostra referred to their cut (i.e. protection tax) from merchants as "wetting the beak"; Triad refers to it as "dipping into the fragrant oil."

So, like any other criminal syndicates, Korean mafias operate in areas where there are legally created market inefficiencies. Those areas are generally loan sharking, prostitution, illegal gambling, smuggling (drugs or other contrabands), and so on. They are often seen extorting protection money from street vendors, since street vendors are usually illegal and the police wouldn't do much if the vendors' property were damaged. They are also known to be heavily involved in construction industry, because 1. getting bids for construction often involves bribery on all levels, which is the kinds of services that organized crime provides, i.e. loan sharking and prostitution, and 2. it also involves very large amounts of loans, often secured by using body parts as collateral. Korean mafias certainly have networks outside of Korea, especially in China and Southeast Asia through which most illegal trades (of women and goods) occur.

Korean mafias are sometimes involved in politics. In the 60s, they were often hired by the dictator government in order to break up the opposition party meetings and conventions. Imagine George W. Bush hiring Cosa Nostra, Crips and Bloods to break up Democratic National Convention, beating the crap out of Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama! That's exactly what happened in Korea in the 60s. (Maybe that's what this country needs to jolt people into consciousness -- Americans tend to take their democracy for granted.)

Now that democracy has taken hold in Korea, mafia involvement in politics is more or less limited to working as an independent contractor for government projects that require violence. Such projects are usually forcibly driving people out of their homes and business in order to make way for a new public project. Gangsters were widely used during the 1988 Seoul Olympics to remove street vendors, who were considered unsightly for the foreign visitors. (The Korean has no idea how the preparation for 2008 Beijing Olympics is going on, but he would not be surprised if things were very similar.) Most recently, thugs were seen beating the crap out of people who were living/doing business around CheongGye-Cheon, a covered stream in downtown Seoul that Seoul's mayor decided to restore for aesthetic purposes.

(Incidentally, the Korean felt very torn about the CheongGye-Cheon Project. On one hand, many poor people were driven out forcibly, without any consideration for their livelihood; on the other hand, Seoul desperately needed greenery and people of Seoul simply love the place. Here are two pictures. You be the judge. Top: Street vendors like the man in the photo were concentrated in the old CheongGye-Cheon area. Bottom: The restored CheongGye-Cheon, decorated with lights.)

But truth be told, organized crime in Korea is not very influential compared to Yakuza or Triad. The history of organized crime in Korea is short and there never was any famed empire such as the Gambino crime family. There never was such a huge market inefficiency (e.g. drugs in the U.S.) that made criminal syndicates incredibly wealthy and influential. The guns regulation in Korea is extremely strict, putting a limit onto the physical damage that any group of thugs may inflict. (In fact, not only is possession of guns in Korea illegal, but also possesssion of a knife/sword whose blade is longer than 15 cm, or about 6 inches, is illegal without a permit. It's one of the things that the Korean likes about Korea more than America.) Aside from the areas of operation mentioned above, an average Korean would never deal with anyone from a criminal syndicate for the duration of his or her life.

Of course, pop culture operates on denying reality, so recently there is a deluge of Korean movies dealing with lives of gangsters, beginning with a mega-hit Chin-Gu ("Friends"). The Korean recommended Chin-Gu if you are curious about getting a glimpse of lives of Korean thugs. It's a good movie. Perhaps the biggest influence of Korean organized crime is striking the inspiration of good film makers. But then again, that's the same everywhere, attested by The Godfather and Infernal Affairs.

(An aside: if The Departed wins any Academy Award, the Korean will pour some raging shitstorm upon Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Scorsese can add the most minimal garnish on Infernal Affairs and walk away with the Oscar that Andy Lau deserves? Hollywood is such bullshit.)

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

-ADDENDUM: 02/05/2007 10: 30 p.m.- According to today's news, organized crime of Korea has deeply infiltrated into the entertainment industry. Popular actor Kwon Sang-Woo has filed charges against Kim Tae-Chon, a well-known criminal syndicate boss, for extorting Kwon to hold a tour in Japan. In addition, apprently Kwon's manager formerly belonged to an organized criminal syndicate, and also extorted Kwon to gain exclusive management rights for two years. Of course, organized crime in the entertainment industry is nothing new, and again same across all countries.