The Grand Narrative

Not strictly about Korea sorry, but I couldn’t resist. From 1960: ( Source: Boing Boing ) :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Introduction (WARNING: The THIRD image in this post features partial nudity) ( Image by DunkelFeld. Full video of 2007 advertisement available here ) ( Source: Unknown ) An effective way to advertise shampoo to women? Why not? I’m sure I don’t need to tell readers that both sexes are at least subconsciously aroused by semi-exposed cleavage and the oh-so-subtle symbolism of the gushing [...]

( Source ) A provocative opening image perhaps, and not technically an advertisement but one of sixty pictures included with Lee Hyori’s latest CD too, but then not only is the fact that it can now be plastered all around the Korean internet with no repercussions significant in itself, for all her frequent plagiarism of Western singers her music [...]

Korean Women on Top Anybody remember this ad with Go Hyeon-jeong (고현정) from last year? Apparently it caused quite a storm in a teacup at the time: Blink and you’ll miss it (update: and it doesn’t seem to be even loading in Internet Explorer too!), so these screen captures below should help you get the gist of it. [...]

( Source ) Introduction: A Return to Korean Advertising Recently it seems that I’m becoming known in the blogosphere as “the man to turn to for Korean sexism”  (see here, here and here for instance), ironic considering how I could be relied upon to provide precisely that just a few short months ago; I guess I’ve redeemed myself. Alas, not before corrupting [...]

( “The Newbies”. Source ) Originally I wasn’t going to write this post until next week, but inspired by this post over at KoreaBeat I’ve decided to go ahead with it now. In hindsight it’s probably best to so while the previous semi-related post keeps the topic fresh in readers’ minds. Introduction One feature of Korean society not so obvious to casual observers is [...]

( “The Newbie” by Oliver Bucheron(?). Source ) Last week my sister passed on this article in the New Zealand Herald on the first ever conference to be held on Korean-New Zealander (”Kowi”) identity issues, and I was surprised to find (brief) mention of it at The Marmot’s Hole the next day. In my first comment to that post I unintentionally sounded quite [...]

( Source ) The Big Japanese 象【ぞう】 in the Room Switching from the office politics of Korean workplaces to the Japanese colonization of East Asia may seem like quite a jump, especially to those whose primary interest is gender issues, but then to fully understand the present-day impact of conscription on Korean society it is obviously necessary to [...]

About five minutes walk away from my work is a Dunkin’ Donuts store, which I go to once or twice a day for coffees. Sure, it’s not Starbucks, but it’s either that or the crud from the vending machine in the staffroom, and if it wasn’t there then I would probably have quit my job [...]

( Source ) Apologies for not writing this post on the day, but then the combination of viruses on my laptop and the week-long flu I had didn’t exactly lend themselves to injecting some bonhomie into what I was writing. Also, I confess, blogging-wise I’d been feeling a bit wistful anticipating the blog’s first birthday, much [...]

( Image by superlocal ) (Apologies for the long delay since the last post. Not only did the subject rapidly expand from what was intended to be two posts at most to what will now be a series of five, but I’ve been having horrendous virus problems on my computer, which may require reinstalling Windows in the [...]

(  Image by Camera Freak ) KoreaBeat has translated an interesting Korean article about the numbers of foreign models in the Korean lingerie industry, and although I’m not going to discuss it here, after all I’ve written on the advertising industry and women’s body images then I’d be remiss in not directing it to your attention! Reading about the numbers [...]

A deserved light post. You’ll see why in the next couple of few days.   As soon I saw that on TV I just had to post it on the blog, although somehow I missed the gormless expression on Lee Yeon-hee’s (이연희) face from 00:15. After that I wasted a lot of time finding it because I thought that the model was [...]

  ( Photo by Eric Lafforque ) Was I wrong? Does this article about North Korean women getting double eyelid-surgery contradict my arguments about South Korean women ultimately having Caucasian ideals of beauty? I don’t think so - North Korea will always be a unique case - but this new use of double-eyelids as a status symbol there would certainly have little to do [...]

(Update: No rain, but no protest outside my apartment either. Can anyone confirm if anything happened in Seomyeon or not? Meanwhile, probably the hugest protest on the issue ever is being staged in Seoul tonight) (Hat tip to Brian, whose post on it turned up on Bloglines before the one at KoreaBeat above did) I did some [...]

As I was blogging putting my daughter to bed on Saturday night, I got quite a shock when I Iooked out my apartment window:   Sorry for the poor quality of the video, and of the photos below, but I was a little freaked out for a while…after everything I’ve read about the violence of protests recently, I was expecting [...]

( “Sexual Math” by snowfreak92187 ) Readers, I’m sure, are familiar with many of the biological and cultural explanations proffered for differences in mental abilities between the sexes. Here’s an an article in the Economist magazine with some strong evidence for, well…both sides to the debate, and with some surprising conclusions about Korea too:  Girls are becoming as good as [...]

(Update 2, June 7th: Been sick as a dog with a flu for the last few days (again). I’ll be back to blogging just as soon as my head stops hurting everytime I want to think!) (Update 1, June 5th: If you found this post interesting, then you might want to check out this thread on Dave’s ESL Cafe too. To those [...]

( “Noho”, 1993. Source ) I can’t visit myself of course, but New York-based readers of the blog (there’s a surprisingly large number of you!) may be interested in an exhibition of artist Oh Chi-gyun’s work entitled “Defining Landscape” at the Chelsea Art Museum running until July the 12th. Here’s a description of the artist and the [...]

( “Cross” by idoru45 ) Introduction Yesterday I made the mistake of looking through one of Korea’s English-language dailies, The Chosun Ilbo. I know, I know…what was I thinking? For sure, Western tabloids are also full of “news” articles that don’t stand up to more than two minutes of analysis by anyone with critical thinking skills, but [...]