Busy busy busy

The Korean is having a very busy time right now. He just graduated, and now he has to move in two days. It doesn't help that his apartment is not packed up at all.

Looks like the new post will be another week. But the Korean promises to make it a good one.

Stephen Colbert vs. The Korean

Good news everyone, the Korean is back with a spiffy new computer. And here is something that the Korean desperately wanted to cover, and here it is now-- at least a week late.

Dear Korean,

Did you see the Stephen Colbert show last night? He did his own Korean music video. I thought it was very funny, but it seemed to spoof budget music videos more than specific Korean-ness--the joke seemed to be that Stephen knows nothing about Korea besides Hyundai & what he learned from M.A.S.H. So, what did you think? Do you know anything about the Korean R&B scene? Are you not at all surprised that Rain is at the top of the Time Readers' 100 Most Influential People?

If you were going to satirize a Korean video, would you do it differently than in The Roots' What They Do? ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8l31heyYxQ ) Or what special video clichés would you have to add on for maximum Korean flavor?

RL

Dear RL,

Thanks for sending in the link for the Colbert Report. (If you are hopelessly behind the times and haven't seen it, here is the link.)

First thing the Korean thought seeing Colbert's video was that his Korean pronunciation was surprisingly good. It was pretty funny.

As to Rain, the Korean is not sure if he really is one of "100 most influential people in the world." The Korean was always skeptical about that type of gimmicky lists. The fact that Rain was voted in by regular people (who bothered to vote) adds to the fact that the whole thing seems to be a bit silly. But it is absolutely true that the "Korean Wave" is a cultural phenomenon to be reckoned with in Asia; the Korean can accept it if Rain was voted in as the representative for the Korean Wave.

The Korean has not followed Korean pop scene much. (Except for a few notable artists, the Korean has always thought it is generally stupid, as all pop cultures go.) But there are definitely certain trends in Korean music videos.

The biggest thing is that they always try to tell some type of story. The Korean thinks the genesis of this trend was the video for 21st Century Monolith by 015B, which cost an unprecedented 100 million won (roughly $100,000) in 1996. Although at the time it was a bold attempt, it unfortunately set a trend that made all the videos appear hilariously stale. Now every Korean music video is a small movie.

Trouble is that since songs generally don't last more than 5 minutes, the movie has to progress very fast. The result is the compressed version of the cheesiest Korean movie/drama you have ever seen. All the cliches are there -- usually a girl dies, either by cancer or a car accident that somehow leaves no injury, only a small stream of blood in the corner of her mouth. Often a rich guy steals a girl, and the poor dude works in a hazardous job, possibly dying of accident or exhaustion. (Or sometimes loses an arm! That's exciting.) And so on and so forth. If the Korean were to make fun of all this, it would probably look like the compressed version of Bobby Lee's skit in MadTV, parodying Korean dramas.

Would the Korean try it? Maybe. The Korean is done with school, so who knows?

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

Ask A Korean! News: Prince Fielder's hereto unknown Korean connection

Dear readers, the Korean is currently borrowing the Korean Girlfriend's laptop in order to report this amazing news of significant consequence.

On Friday, the Korean was watching the New York Mets versus Milwaukee Brewers baseball on his newly acquired HD TV, and the current major league home run leader Prince Fielder stepped into the box. Fielder is in the Korean's fantasy baseball team, the Inland Empire 66ers, so the Korean paid close attention.

Then the Korean noticed something so improbable that at first the Korean disbelieved his own eyes. The Korean reached for his remote, desperately hit "rewind" and "pause" on his DVR over and over and again, but it was there. So here is the news, reported for the first time here at Ask A Korean!:

Prince Fielder has a neck tattoo that says wangja ("prince") in Korean on his left neck. See the picture below.I mean, what the hell. Seriously, who the hell gets a tattoo in Korean? (Unless there is a good reason to, like Hines Ward who has his name tattooed in Korean because he is half-Korean.)

The Korean has no idea how to feel about this. On one hand, it could be seen as evidence that Korea is becoming more recognized in the U.S. in various ways. Formerly, East Asia consisted of China and Japan, and Korea was kind of an afterthought. But tattoo in foreign language is usually done because it is considered "exotic", so the Korean is not sure if this is the case that Korea is more known in the U.S.

The overwhelming feeling that the Korean experienced (especially upon looking at the picture again) was how stupid neck tattoos look. The Korean always thought neck tattoos were silly, but seeing one in letters that the Korean can recognize was really the clincher. Even if neck tattoos were in English, they are usually done in some Olde English font so they are not readily readable. But Prince Fielder's neck tattoo is written in plain, legible Korean. It is as if some regular Korean dude was hanging out and drinking with Prince Fielder one night, then Fielder passes out, and the Korean dude picked up a marker and wrote it on his neck as a joke. (Like poor Zach Braff here in Garden State.)

Did anyone else notice any Korean tattoos on people? The Korean would love to hear your story. Please write on the comment, or email the Korean.

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

DisasterDisasterDisaster

Bad news everyone. The Korean's laptop is dead - cause of death: drowning. (The Korean spilled water on it.)

Fortunately, the Korean Brother will bring the Korean a new computer, but that won't be until next week. So no post until then. Thank you all for reading.

So this guy went into a Korean bathroom, and there was no toilet paper...

Dear Korean,

Why do some bathrooms in Korea (western-style ones) say that you should put used toilet paper in a trash can next to the toilet instead of the toilet itself? I would think that a trash can just sitting around full of fecal used toilet paper would be a big health hazard. The flush on the toilets seem to be perfectly strong and don't jam up, yet many bathrooms still have big notices telling people to put their waste paper in a trash can instead.

If It's Brown, Flush It Down

Dear Bathroom User,

You just never know if the toilet would jam up with excess amount of toilet paper. Some people definitely go completely overboard with the amount of paper required for the act. In fact, this is not unique to Korea either -- the exact same problem happens in America, especially in skyscrapers with complicated plumbing systems. The solution for the New York skyscrapers apparently is to use single-ply toilet papers (possibly because of the health hazard that you mentioned.) So we have this hilarious consequence of all these Wall Street bigwig banks and law firms using single-ply toilet paper.

Speaking of Korean public bathrooms, until the late 1990s very few Korean public bathrooms (ones in subways, etc; bathrooms in restaurants and shopping centers are not included here) had toilet paper, because people would routinely steal them. People generally carried their own Kleenex for emergency use, but almost all Koreans (especially men, who don't carry a purse) experienced a situation in which he was forced to contemplate the next step after he has relieved himself. So a very popular series of jokes in Korea involves a situation in which someone runs out of toilet paper in a public restroom. The Korean's favorite one is the following:

Two guys were sitting in the public bathroom stalls, when the first guy talks to the second guy:
A: Er, excuse me. Do you have any toilet paper?
B: I'm sorry, I do, but just enough for myself.
A: Oh come on, can you please help me out?
B: No way man, I'm sorry.
A: Look, I'll pay you $10 for that toilet paper.
B: I'm sorry, I really need this.
$10 bill is slipped into B's stall from A's stall.
A: Alright then, do you have ten $1 bills?

Do you have any good no-toilet paper jokes? Send them over this way, and the Korean will post them.

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

Swing a dead cat to hit a Kim

Dear Korean,

Why do so many Koreans have the last name of Kim? What's a "high" Kim and what's a "low" Kim?

Walter H. Sakai
Professor of Biology, Santa Monica College

Dear Professor Sakai,

There really are a lot of Korean Kims. Kim is the most common last name in Korea, making up roughly 20 percent of the population -- which makes it about 10 million Kims. According to Los Angeles Times article that spoke about racial diversity in Los Angeles County, Lopez and Kim were two examples of ethnic last names that were more common than Smith. Other very common last names are Lee (15 percent) and Park (10 percent). Kim, Lee, and Park put together is about 45 percent of the Korean population.

Why so many Kims? Kim was the last name for the oldest and longest dynasty of Korea, namely Silla Dynasty, born in 57 BC and perished in 935 AD. In the early period, Silla had three rotating last names for kings -- Park clan was the one that started the Dynasty, then Seok clan, then Kim clan. Over time, Kim clan became the most powerful, and eventually all Silla kings were from the Kim clan for over 700 years. Since Kims were royalties and noblemen, their population was bound to become large.

There is not exactly a "high" or "low" Kim, but Kims (just like all other last names in Korea) are divided into a number of clans and subclans. The largest Kim clan is Gimhae Kims, which has more than 4 million members. There are certain last names that used to only belong to lower-class people (e.g. Cheon, Bang, Ji, Chu, Ma, Gol, Pih). But the significance of family lineage has greatly diminished in the modern era; frankly, no one but old coots care about last names in Korea anymore.

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

Some meta-questions

Dear Korean,

Why do you refer to yourself in the third person?

Gretchen

Dear Gretchen,

Because the Korean thinks it's cool.

Dear Korean,

Why do you refer to your answer seekers as cowards?

Linus Cheeseater

Dear Linus,

Only the ones who don't sign their names are cowards. At least give a first name, or give a funny pen name for the entertainment of all. You are on a good start.

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

My Sassy Girl?

Dear Korean,

How do Korean guys reconcile the wife-beater rep with images like that of the guy in "My Sassy Girl"? My cousin loves the movie and runs around saying "wanna die?" in Korean.

Baffled Chinese

Dear Baffled Chinese,

Easy. My Sassy Girl is a comedy. It's funny because it's so obviously untrue.

As an aside, the Korean never understood the appeal of My Sassy Girl. Someone please explain why that movie is any good. It appears that there is an American remake of that movie in the works -- if this is going to be another Infernal Affairs/The Departed debacle, the Korean will pop a vein in his head.

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

Korean movies ... are really just okay.

Dear Korean,

I am a pretty dedicated movie buff. Recently, I've been seeing a few Korean movies. My question is this: why do these movies rock so hard? What is it about Korean filmmakers that has them putting out such awesome fare? I realize that anything that actually makes it to the U.S. from Korea has to be pretty decent (hence a skewed sample, perhaps), but I haven't found much of anything here that will rival these interesting movies in many capacities. Is it just that familiarity breeds contempt? What's your take?

Foreign Film Enthusiast

Dear Foreign Film Enthusiast,

The trend of good Korean movies is a really recent one, and there are a few reasons for that. First, Korea finally is rich enough to sustain a movie industry that does not look cheap (as opposed to Bollywood). Also, more Americans (although still not enough) are receptive to watching Asian films because of the success of some Asian movies (most notably Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). The growing Asian American community also proabably has something to do with it.

As to actual appeal of the movies, the Korean thinks what you said are all correct. The movies that make it out of Korea are all above-average movies. Also, Korean movie makers tend to employ a different story-telling technique than American film makers, which tend to highlight different aspects of a story. (The influence of Wong Kar-wai has a lot to do with this. Among American directors, Sophia Coppola's style is the closest to Korean story-telling style.)

But make no mistake about it -- Korea produces really shitty movies as well. The worst movie that the Korean has ever seen in a theatre (and the Korean has watched Battlefield Earth in a theater, so this is saying something) was Bi-cheon-mu in Korea, an ill-fated attempt at a blockbuster martial arts movie. The highlight of the movie was Kim Hee-seon, the lead actress, sternly said, "if you kill him, I will die too." The line was not really spoken, but read, as if she had a telepromter in front of her. High comedy.

But the Korean really thinks that the attitudes of "foreign movie buffs" are somewhat unfair. If you look at the imdb.com page for Bicheonmu, you can see that a lot of idiotic people liked what was generally considered the worst Korean movie of the decade (at least worst among the ones that cost a ton of money to make.) The Korean loves foreign films, but he also thinks the achievements of Hollywood deserves to be recognized. The Korean has not yet seen any movie that matches the strength of Godfather, for example. Even recently, the Korean hard pressed to think of another movie, foreign or American, that so sensitively and humourously portrayed family love as Little Miss Sunshine. It's good that your horizons are broader than what are immediately around you, but see the movies for what they are: some movies are going to be fantastic and some movies will really suck, no matter where they are made.

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