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Something about Kong Hyo-jin (공효진) got me all hot and bothered last week. And no, I don’t mean her lingerie photoshoot for Calvin Klein.

Rather, it was her ads for Uniqlo (유니클로), all over Busan at the moment. Surely, I thought, the creative team could have anticipated how their ads would look on the side of buses, and designed something that didn’t look like she was literally squashed into them?

But then I caught a subway train on Line 2, every carriage of which was decked out like this:

And suddenly I realized that her squashed appearance wasn’t an accident:

Still, what’s the big deal?

Well, just try it for yourself. Assuming that you have, and that your neck no longer hurts, then now you too may be wondering why her head was placed so awkwardly. Moreover, why is it overwhelmingly women that have this “head cant” in advertisements too, albeit not usually tilted quite so much?

( Sources: unknown )

Sociologist Erving Goffman believed it made women look subordinate, and hence that the disparity was evidence of sexism. But as I already discussed that back in February, my original aim here was just to pass on further evidence of the sociological pattern.

Yet the more I looked at the ad, the more I liked it despite myself. And I wanted to know why.

One possible reason, I thought, was Kong Hyo-jin’s luxuriant, flowing hair, another recurring theme of advertisements. Combined with her hands on her hips, it reminded of this ad with Kim Ah-joong (김아중) especially:

( Source: unknown )

And in particular, the wind effect:

…makes it look as though whatever she is looking at (presumably a male viewer) is powerful enough to nearly blow her away while she marvels at him and waits for his approach. She doesn’t look like she intends to act, but rather like she hopes to be acted upon–sexual but still submissive.

As discussed in detail here. But of course that wouldn’t apply to all cases of women with windswept hair in advertisements, and so I did a little investigating. And just guess what I found was #1 in “The 13 Most Common Female Courtship Signals and Gestures” in my Korean edition of The Definitive Book of Body Language (p. 290)?

Basically, that says that when women see a man they are interested in, the first thing they tend to do is start touching their hair, as raising their arms allows them to more easily give off pheromones via their armpits. I’m surprised that it doesn’t also mention that it would also serve to thrust their chests out a little too, and that as women tend to have longer hair than men then touching it also shows off that secondary sexual characteristic; but it does note that even women with short hair do it, so that latter may not be all that important really.

The head cant though? It’s more complicated, and for a little while I confused it with number 7 on that list (pp. 293-4):

But which is not actually referring to the head cant, but rather how women will raise their shoulders and look at the object of their affection while he’s preoccupied, suddenly looking away when he looks at them (which in turn makes him secretly look at them afterward, according to the book). Apparently, the round shape of their shoulders is suggestive of breasts also, which is not as ludicrous as it sounds considering breasts themselves evolved (to such a disproportionately large size for primates) through looking similar to buttocks.

Still, I did know that a tilted head showed interest in something or someone though (sexual or otherwise), and sure enough I soon found this (pp. 231-2):

Apologies for lacking the time to properly translate all of the above scans; if anyone would like me to, I’m quite happy to later in the week. In the meantime, it basically says that in addition being an expression of interest, tilting the head also serves to expose the neck, the obvious submissiveness of which is exaggerated by also having the effect of making the person shorter and/or smaller, which is quite the opposite of standing up straight to emphasize our height when we want to compete or fight with others in some sense.

Finally, it notes that it is often seen on women in advertisements, although it doesn’t say why. Upon reading that though, I finally realized what many of you probably knew all along: Kong Hyo-jin is in that pose because it’s sexually appealing to men, as easily confirmed by this, this, and this article on dating advice, and that’s why I was drawn to it I guess.

Hell, even knowing all that, I still like it!

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t problematic. Or rather, that seeing that pose so often on women in advertisements isn’t. After all, there are many many other ways to appeal to heterosexual men, some quite the opposite of looking submissive, so it’s strange that that particular one would be so common (and, related, that you find women taller than accompanying men in ads much less than in real life). Moreover, why is the ad designed for a male gaze too, when presumably the intended consumers of the women’s clothes advertised are women?

But I started this post because Kong Hyo-jin’s pose looked so strange, and just because it did ultimately prove to have a logic is not to say that women in advertisements aren’t still frequently placed in some bizarre, awkward poses nevertheless. Consider the other Uniqlo advertisement in the series on the bus for instance:

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Next, on the subway:

And finally, the full length version:

Now, despite deconstructing advertisements for over 3 years, just like everyone else in a developed country I too am exposed to 500-1000 advertising messages a day. So some common advertising themes I just simply get used to, a sure sign of which is that I originally thought that this was the more normal and natural-looking of the 2 advertisements, and hence had no intention of writing about it.

But in fact, it’s anything but “natural”. Again, I invite you to adopt Kong Hyo-jin’s pose for yourself just to see how strange it really is.

The crucial thing is her arms: one folded over the other, it reminds me most of a gesture that you’ll frequently see on new students and colleagues and so on on their first days at schools and workplaces. Just like on the woman below on page 103 of The Definitive Book of Body Language:

As I first mentioned here, the logic behind it is that when someone is nervous, then their instinctive reaction is to protect their exposed fronts using whatever comes to hand, be they bags, books, folders…or of course their own arms. Meeting people with folded arms doesn’t exactly create a warm and open first impression though, and so with the other partially open, hanging arm, they try to express that at the same time.

Yes, it is indeed an awkward compromise, but even having read the 1989 edition of Body Language above at the age of 13, and being perfectly aware of what I was doing (and why) thereafter, nevertheless I still couldn’t stop putting my arms like that on my first days at all 6 of my high schools (in 3 years in 3 countries). For those lacking self-confidence, as I did back then, it is an amazingly powerful instinct.

In Kong Hyo-jin’s case however, while I guess the expression of nervousness does accentuate an image of submissiveness, it’s just too much of a compromise to expose one part of the body – the neck – while protecting others with the arms. It also contradicts her “bashful knee bend” too, which I discuss here.

But why? I confess I simply don’t know, being a little mentally subdued after having to reconsider my original opinions about the first ad so much. Now seems as good a time as any then, to throw the floor open to readers, who may see something that I’ve missed and/or have alternative explanations!^^

Filed under: Body Image, Busan, Gender Socialization, Korean Advertisements, Sexual Discrimination Tagged: Erving Goffman, 공효진, Gender Advertisements, 유니클로, Kong Hyo-jin, Uniqlo

The Han River bike trail is my church. I ride it home from school even though it takes an hour longer. This is the tunnel that separates the quiet expanse of the river park from the chaotic jumble of Seoul. The portal through which I often pass through reluctantly.

Filed under: 35mm, minolta srt, photos, Uncategorized

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1) 60% of underage female entertainers pressured to expose as much skin as possible

Lest that sound like an exaggeration in light of other news articles that state that only 10% are, let me refer you to the relevant section in the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family’s (여성가족부; MOGEF) own report on its survey of 103 teenage entertainers and aspirants (53 males, 50 females), which specifically says:

19세 미만의 청소년 연예인(88명) 응답을 분석한 결과, 연예 활동 시 10.2%가 신체 부위(다리, 가슴, 엉덩이 등) 노출을 경험하였으며, 여성 청소년 연예인의 경우 60%가 강요에 의한 노출이라고 응답하였다.

Or that of the 88 male and female teenage entertainers interviewed (not aspirants), 10.2% said they had the experience of exposing parts of their bodies (legs, breasts, buttocks, and so on) while performing, whereas 60% of the female ones had been pressured to.

Which remains confusing, but I think it’s safe to assume that the 10.2% of cases of exposure by males and females referred to were accidental (albeit because of their clothing?), and that the 60% of females that were coerced to wear skimpy clothing were in little position to refuse. Whatever the true figures however, they belie recent claims that such fashions are somehow intrinsically empowering in a sexual and/or feminist sense, or that it’s the girls themselves that want to wear them (and recall that Girls’ Generation above, for one, was specifically created to appeal to 30 and 40-something men).

Meanwhile, they’re also pressured to go on diets and get cosmetic surgery and so on, and teenagers of both sexes miss out on schooling and work excessively long hours because – bizarrely – entertainers aren’t covered by child labor laws. See the above links and also Extra! Korea and JoongAng Daily for a summary of all the issues raised by the survey, and kudos to MOGEF for finally doing something within its limited budget (0.12% of the government total) that may nevertheless ultimately have a genuine impact on young women’s lives (unlike here, here, here, and here).

2) Subway groping on the rise

In Seoul at least. By coincidence, Busan Mike saw an incident in Busan last week too, although of course that doesn’t necessarily imply that it’s rising in Busan also.

3) THAT video

Yes, Mamma Mia by Narsha (나르샤) of the Brown Eyed Girls (브라운 아이드 걸스), which a dozen readers passed on to me because it’s so rare to see Korean female/Western male pairings in the Korea media. I can’t really add anything that Mellowyel hasn’t already covered in her own excellent analysis of it though (see here also), but you may be interested in this 2002 S.E.S (에스.이.에스) video that it instantly reminded me of, as the contrast in the treatment of the Western men in it couldn’t be greater:

Despite how it may appear though, Matt at Gusts of Popular Feeling argues that in fact they’re a substitute for Korean men, who wouldn’t have accepted being portrayed so negatively. Why not? See this *cough* 4500 word post of mine on that here, in which I place it into the context of Korean social and sexual norms in the late-1990s and early-2000s.

4) Number of female victims of sexual abuse is 8 times greater than actually reported

Unfortunately no details are given about its methodology, but according to a recent study by Korean Institute of Criminology, about 470 out of every 100,000 women were sexually abused in 2008, which is eight times more than the official figure of 58. Of those, 36 out of 100,000 were raped, 9.5 times the official number.

Like the reader who sent those on to me pointed out, of course it’s not news that most cases go unreported, but it is nice to see this fact getting some attention from the national news agency.

Update: Korea Beat has a little more information on it here, noting that “it has been the general understanding that many more sexual assaults occur than are reported, but this study is the first to produce relatively concrete figures” (my emphasis).

5) Korean Demographic Reader

As always, rather depressing news:

• Korean population to begin shrinking from 2018 (Arirang; The Chosun Ilbo).
• Korea’s birthrate continues its slide (The Korea Times, source right; Yonhap).
• Average age of first-time mothers continues to rise (Arirang; The Chosun Ilbo)

More interesting are two stories about Japan, with very similar problems (and for similar reasons). First, an article entitled “Families dictate Japan’s economic fate” from The Japan Times, which describes how one scholar:

…uses the cases of families collecting dead members’ pensions and the rise of “parasite singles” to point out how a rich, vital economy can sink so far it has no realistic chance of climbing back up. Low birthrate is a problem, but mainly as a consequence of Japan’s “failure to create jobs.” The Japanese media has not ignored this connection, but in general they still blame population contraction on social changes rather than economic ones, as if the two were somehow distinct. Men have become less aggressive, women too choosy; so they don’t marry and procreate.

Many Japanese still believe that the country’s economic and social problems can be solved by regaining so-called traditional values related to family and community…

And as it demonstrates, that is patently not the case. But as for more detail as to why, see the recently published Contemporary Japan: History, Politics and Social Change Since the 1980s by Jeff Kingston, reviewed here by the Economist:

THE modern image of Japan is built on shaky foundations. In the 1980s nearly all Japanese considered themselves middle class. Other abiding beliefs include companies looking after workers through lifetime employment and the yakuza, Japan’s mafia, being guardians of the lost samurai spirit. There is some truth in all this but, as with other national myths, their real importance is in what they reveal about those who hold them dear.

If the Japanese nurse old-fashioned conceptions about their national identity, so do foreigners. Throughout the 1980s Americans gobbled up books that painted a Japan that was poised to surpass the United States by dint of a superior education system, low crime rate, good labor relations, bureaucratic acumen, familial ties and (let it not be forgotten) racial purity. Most foreigners still see Japan in the rear-view mirror, as an egalitarian, socially cohesive society.

“Contemporary Japan” by Jeff Kingston, the director of Asian studies at Temple University in Japan, does sterling service in stripping away or qualifying many of these misconceptions…

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6) We married Koreans

Unfortunately for us, Diana of Going Places is now back in the US, but she’s still taken the time to write a review of We Married Koreans (2009), “a collection of 12 true stories of interracial, intercultural marriages between American women and Korean men in the 1960s”. A quick excerpt:

…It tells a fascinating history, both personal and cultural, of Korea as it struggled towards democracy (one woman’s husband was imprisoned for anti-government demonstrations in Korea) and America as it struggled towards racial equality (many of the women speak frankly about some of the racial epithets hurled at their children). The couples mostly met, married, and lived in America, but most lived for at least a short time in Korea and one missionary couple spent most of their marriage in the Korean expat community in Brazil. I feel like I just sat down and read 12 very good personal blogs about Korea.

Read the rest here. By coincidence, the World Federation of Korean Intermarried Women’s Association’s 6th annual conference, whose members are Korean women married to foreign men, was just held in Seattle, the first to be held outside of Korea.

7) Korea’s national motto is  “Just Bear It”?

Gord Sellar makes quite a convincing case:

Pretty much every time someone I know is doing something against his or her better judgment, something he or she clearly ought not to be doing — working a job he or she absolutely hates, coddling an abusive or infantile parent, turning down a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, or studying a subject for which he or she feels no interest — you can usually find a number of people have told the person that it’s important to “just bear it” — ie. bear with it, put up with your dissatisfaction, ignore your instincts, and do the thing you know you shouldn’t.

( Source: unknown )

While I’m sure long-timers especially need little convincing, let me buttress that with the following from the Samsung Economic Research Institute in 2008 (my emphasis):

…In sum, Koreans still regard their jobs principally as a means of livelihood. This mirrors the reality here in Korea where work does little to enrich the life of the people.

Many workers still take it for granted that they have to tolerate anything in return for getting paid. This kind of job atmosphere produces a negative influence on both companies and employees alike. With this in mind, businesses need to make more efforts to develop new programs, aimed at bringing a higher sense of value of work and satisfaction to their employees.

And I can vouch that even my wife finds it surprisingly difficult to conceive of how one’s job can ever be anything but sheer drudgery, let alone something one can enjoy and/or find it fulfilling.

Focusing on the gender dimension here though, Gord was prompted towards the above by a recent encounter in a hospital with a family with an abusive husband and father, and while I concur with his assessment that the wife was at least partially responsible for her situation, his story does provide a very human face to the extreme financial difficulties middle-aged women, most of whom are housewives, have in leaving loveless and/or abusive marriages (although it’s amazing that the divorce rate is so high nevertheless).

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8) Civil service exams to be abolished

While that may sound trivial to Western readers, in Korea it is anything but, as over 200,000 young Koreans are studying for them at any one time.

Why so many? Because the civil service remains one of the few institutions after the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 which still provides  “jobs for life”, unlike the rest of the Korean economy which now has the highest number of irregular workers in the OECD. Consequently, the various exams are extremely competitive, and indeed one of my own sisters-in-law spent over 4 years studying for hers before finally qualifying…for a series of grueling interviews, which many applicants still fail (including a friend of mine), but fortunately she made it through those as well.

Why this is a gender issue is because despite the difficulties, at least it is entirely meritocratic, and as such it has a disproportionate number of female applicants. Compare the private sector in contrast, where Gord Sellar’s partner was recently required to provide answers like the following in her application for a job at a major Korean company for instance:

• list your brothers and sisters, and their places of employment
• how old are your siblings?
• what is your father’s job?
• is your mother a housewife?
• what is your height?
• what is your weight?
• what is your religion?
• are you the descendant of a war veteran?

And don’t forget that a photo is also required, which as you can see above, has led to a flourishing photoshopping industry catering to job applicants.

Filed under: Korean Gender Reader Tagged: 나르샤, Groping, 여성가족부, Mamma Mia, Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, MOGEF, Narsha

"Chess should not become an obsession. Otherwise there’s a danger that you will slide off into a parallel world, that you lose your sense of reality, get lost in the infinite cosmos of the game. You become crazy. I make sure that I have enough time between tournaments to go home in order to do other things. I like hiking and skiing, and I play football in a club." 

- Magnus Carlson (youngest world chess champion in history, at 17 years of age)

In UDK, an easy way to get a bot to follow a specified path.
The delays are so he pauses at the end of his path before continuing on patrol.

This is just a simple method. If obstructed by the player he will run on the spot trying to keep reaching his goal. Also, there's nothing to deal with bot death, or bot sensitivity to being shot, or level restarting.



Here is an attempt to deal with some things like bot getting hit. There's a glitch in it that prevents him from stopping shooting when the player dies. Let me know if you can spot it.

East LA Painting by Chepe Escondido                                  Brothers cycling in Kampot, Cambodia

MY brother is NOT impressed with YOUR swaggy homegown, Chepe Escondido!!!!

Joke Only! 

Muchas gracias por su generosidad!  It's actually really tasty; it just burns up so quickly. 
I'm not complaining, merely commenting.  Critiquing the latest harvest, that is all.  Ah shit!

Give it up for being legal while others are criminalized for doing the same thing.
 
Did you enjoy the Dengue Fever show?  I sure did.  Dengue Fever, an East LA Band of Cambodian ancestry.  All further photos come from my travels to Cambodia.  All further words about the show.



Koh Kong Cambodia, bordertown to Hat Lek Thailand
You can read more about this town in my opus CULTUREBOOK MMX Book Two

Funny thing.  Minutes from your door, Chepe sitting at a red light, I had a thought, OH MY DOG!
"Free show, Park setting, East Los / Cambodian Band?"  I'd be a fool not to go there and set up shop. 

I had no idea where the show was.  I've been to Pasadena maybe 5 times in my life.  4 of them with YOU! 
I planned to hit Old Town, get an LA Weekly, but I didn't have to.  GOD was on my side.  I was listening to my Rai Ko Ris CD, my punk rock friends from Nepal, while driving up the Arroyo Hwy thinking -- I thought about Olivier, the 50 year old Mohawk wearing French drummer of Rai Ko Ris, if HE were ME, a writer with a book for sale, HE would totally (LET'S) GO DOWN TO THE PARK TODAY and try to sell books.  Why the fuck not?!?  Thanks Aubrey for the song with the same title, co-written with Flavor Flay and John Compus and Fleff.  It was very fitting.  I guess I should thank Erica cuz SHE REQUESTED IT!  Funny thing, the store clerk recommended it!  Shakolov Shoplifing Berkeley  Fleff knew 3 different Sokolovs in 3 semesters!  What are the chances of that?
 
Also, RAI KO RIS is basically Drums and Bass/Guitar both played by Oli's Nepalese wife.  When they sing together, they sound kind of like EXene and John Doe, but because RKR's sound quality is not TIP TOP, they sound a little like Tonio singing alongside Chrissy in Beef Church. Rai Ko Ris got me amped.
 
And, also because of the beauty of Dengue Fever's lead female vocalizations, it all kind of adds up to the proposition that:  Perhaps a female singer IS the way to go for, US and our Coffee Stains.  I think a woman singing my song Zsa Zsa Gabor would be a lot like NIKO and the VU, minus Andy Warhol.  Like Hole. hunky dory bowie 

Just a thought that we can roll with. 
 
And Coffee Stain was Chepe Escondido's Sports News Guy character in our old Vid.
 
I found the park, found parking across the street, was told by organizers that I couldn't NOT set up shop.  I did anyway.  I sold TWO whole books, talked to a lot of people.  Met the band, gave a signed copy to Nemol, Dengue Fever's hot, well endowed, Cambodian singer, whom I rapped with for a long time.  She said, "We play UCLA late September."  I said, "By then my book will be famous.  You have one of the first copies."  That's what I told Nemol as I gave her a signed copy with my electronic digits.  "This book is going to be very well known in short time."  I told her convincingly.  She asked him knowingly!  
 

This is NOT Nimol.  This is some other girl of Cambodian  ancestry whom I know, in Phnom Penh. 
She's older than she looks!

If NImo had made a plug of my book while on stage, I'll bet at least 30 people would've bought one.  AND I could've sold each for $12.  That'll be the price when me and the Gabors have our STORE on Venice Beach next week. 

Have his kids be hawkers -- they are 1/4 - 1/2 Mexican/Filipina.  They'll DRAW people in by sitting around drawing with us and being noticeable.  We'll probably bring a guitar and some percussive as well.  Sodas, food, and umbrella for the sun, swim suits.  Make a day of it.  Zsa and Isis don't go back to school till mid Sept. and their father has no job.  Now he does!
 
Let the product sell itself, but employ the Gabors draw in people.  And they get their cut, as promised.  With me ALONE I can easily get muscled out or harassed AND I can't even leave to go buy a lemonade!  But, more importantly, I can stay true to my word of employing St Tommy.  That PROMISE was bent on the whole warehouse premise.  Now a new  bender is needed.

It's like my mom and our cleaning woman.  I used to say to my mom, we don't really need her EVERY week and my mom's reply, "She NEEDS the money!" as if THAT were my mom's chief purpose in hiring her.  Funny, but true.
 
We ARE all in this together.  The sooner people realize that, the better for all.  I'm glad my mom has been my biggest teacher of all my teachers in this lifetime.  I would never want to discount Townsend's influence on me.  I'm listening to him right now.  Pictures of Lily.  Happy Jack.  A Quick One, while he's away

I arrived at the Pasadena free show BEFORE Dengue Fever took the stage and that entire show was supreme.  Thanks for the idea.  Did you see me there?  If I'd had a phone, I MAY have texted you.  Did you get my ...burrito? 
 
Got my plan all worked out now.  Tom will go to work for me. His first job is to make my sign and station.  He's an artist.  He's good at that stuff.  I'll design it.  BUY A BOOK    FILL YOUR HEART WITH LOVE TODAY bowie
FILL YOUR MIND      LAOS, CAMBODIA, PHILIPPINES, THAILAND, SOUTH KOREA, JAPAN
US ARMED FORCES and TEACHING ENGLISH IN ASIA                         WHAT IS SEX TOURISM ANYWAY?
 
Something to that effect
 
Homeless dudes in urine soaked pantaloons panhandling alms
Me selling my book
What's the difference

Spread the word.





The Streets of Phnom Penh circa 2008

I am adopted. Before I Came to Korea I met one of my birth sisters and my birth mother. I felt a connection to them but it was a distant one but we stayed in contact. I refused to get to know my other birth sister for she was very negative towards the first sister. The first sister is mentally disabled and has the mind of a child and therefore doesn’t have the mental capacity to defend herself. Having always been the underdog in my life, I felt bad for my first sister and was not going to encourage this negativity to continue. So i explained to her in a letter that she needs to work on her relationshp with her sister before I will get to know her. This conversation was months ago. But for reasons unknown to me my birth mother has removed me from facebook on my birthday.

Nothing says rejection than your own mother denying your birthday.

I now have a website. mychocolatediaries.com. I decided to write about happy things chocolate than dwell on the negativity of Korea. Enjoyl.

VINCENT MINELLI RETROSPECTIVE Where: Busan Cinematheque When: June 8-22 The golden age of Hollywood is easily one of my favorite periods in the history of cinema, when the likes of Billy Wilder, Preston Sturges, William Wyler, and Howard Hawks flourished under the old studio system. This month, the Busan cinematheque is running a retrospective in [...]

I appeared on Busan e-FM 90.5 to talk films with fellow movie-critic and Busan Haps writer Tom Bellmore for a special segment of their weekly program “Let’s Talk Busan.” Listen to the show (No 49 [2009-05-23] Let’s Talk Busan!) here: http://www.befm.or.kr/program/letstalk/ProgramAction.do?cmd=PlayAgain&prgmId=letstalk

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON Directed by: Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders Voices by: Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson Release Date: May 20 (in theaters everywhere) When DVDs started hitting the shelves about a decade ago (yes, it’s been that long), I remember scoffing at their so-called superior quality, stubbornly clinging to the symbol of [...]

CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN CINEMA SERIES Where: Busan Cinematheque When: May 7-23 This month, the Busan Cinematheque is running a series of films by contemporary European directors. Unfortunately, it’s a pretty sad sample and most of the continent’s greatest working auteurs are conspicuously absent. Apart from the “Four Seasons” by Eric Rohmer (who, as of January, is [...]

Directed by:  Kathryn Bigelow Starring: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie Release Date: April 22 (in theaters everywhere) With its rock’em sock’em directing and fast-paced editing, this year’s Oscar darling is really more of an action flick than a war film, even though it centers on an Army bomb squad unit in Iraq at the height of [...]

WORLD CINEMA VII FILM SERIES When: March 19 – April 25 Where: Busan Cinematheque The selection of films being screened this month at the Busan Cinematheque covers a lot of ground, spanning from the silent era to the contemporary American indie scene. In special focus are the works of Carl Theodor Dreyer, a silent film [...]

SHUTTER ISLAND Directed by: Martin Scorsese Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley Release Date: March 18 (in theatres everywhere) Best known for his mafia movies, Martin Scorsese has nevertheless explored a variety of genres throughout his long filmmaking career. In his latest release, “Shutter Island,” about a U.S. Marshal investigating the disappearance of one [...]

Is it just me, or do the Oscars feel completely irrelevent this year? OK, so I haven’t seen a large portion of the nominees, and will concede that I’m more or less talking out of my ass, but the reason I haven’t seen films like “The Blind Side,” “Precious: Based on the Novel Push by [...]

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK Directed by: Charlie Kaufman Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener Where: Busan Cinematheque When: March 2-18 Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut is by far his most bizarre work. And coming from a man who has more or less made ‘bizarre’ his calling card, with films like “Being John Malkovitch” (1999), “Adaptation” (2002), “Eternal [...]

The Chinese can't get everything they want all the time, right? So they have been on a heck of a roll these past few years: booming economy, Obama rebuffing the Dalai Lama, Chinese censors blocking both my blog and my website (busanhaps.com for God knows what), the Olympics, etc.But all of this carte blanche given to the Chinese by the U.S. due to the ridiculous amount of American debt they are

Am I my brother's keeper?

Perhaps not, but I can't help but worry about the people who are going to get the swine flu vaccine, thinking it will protect them from an arguably harmless virus.

Koreans, particularly, seem overly trustful of vaccines.

Before being injected with the mystery vaccine, a few stories need to be brought to light.

First, we have to look at the track record of the swine flu vaccine maker Baxter BioPharma Solutions.

Last year Baxter tested its H5N1 bird flu vaccine on 350 Polish homeless people.  The lucky folks at the homeless shelter were paid roughly $3 for their participation which left 21 of them dead. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/2235676/Homeless-people-die-after-bird-flu-vaccine-trial-in-Poland.html

A few months later Baxter sent out 158 pounds of vaccine to Europe for human injection. Luckily a Czeck research team tested the vaccine on some ferrets, all of which died. The World Health Organization was then notified and a catastrophe was avoided. Baxter, in turn, said it was a "mistake" that the vaccine they sent out was infected with a live bird flu virus (H5N1).

A mistake eh? Many don't seem to think so.

Jane Burgermeister is an experience and respected journalist. She has filed allegations of bioterrorism and attempts to commit mass murder against the World Health Organization(WHO), the United Nations (UN), and others with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) . Her website is here. http://www.theflucase.com/

Unfortunately these are just a few out of many vaccine horror stories. 

And looks like we are in the midst one of at least 2 swine flu scams.

In 1976 a similar case of swine flu hysteria was induced in the United States via main stream media outlets. 40 million people got vaccinated and 4000 of them either died or became paralyzed. Here is part 1 of  the 1979  60 Minutes report on the so-called pandemic which turned out to be a fraud. Watching this 60 Minutes special will forever change the way you think about vaccines. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEJyUgt7lY8 

I've talked to some of my Korean co-workers and their eyes seem to gloss over when I suggest that taking the swine flu vaccine might not be such a good idea. Lots of them are planning to get it as soon as it comes out because they are worried there won't be enough to go around. 

Personally I'd take my chances with the flu.

Incidentally, Korea is recieving a large portion of its swine flu vaccine stockpile from Sinovac, the largest vaccine producer in China. South Korea will also produce its own vaccine domestically through Green Cross.