endorfin de semana

shape me please

la botella verde

the mats lande – overlight in your face collection, uno

the mats lande – overlight in your face collection, dos

the mats lande – overlight in your face collection, tres

infinidad

sunshine addicts

the carnival

la mesa de las mezclas

soju tinto estrella

the no-tomorrow boy

Beer match

Rather than heading straight to the office for my regular segment this morning, I left bright and early to COEX for another one of their fabulous exhibitions (you can expect Dessert and Café shows to follow next week) to host on-site.

I’ll try not to get ahead of myself but hands down, this event is a Foodies paradise. First let’s start off with my favorite, the free take-homes! Looking through my bag of goodies, I not only have a smorgasbord of pamphlets, brochures and booklets, but I took a handful of bite size marshmallow candies, a mini container of ‘Sweet Skin Care Sugar,’ mochi rice cakes from Japan, a ‘Laughing Cow’ cheese souvenir, ‘Ronnefeldt’ tea bags, a 500 gram bag of ‘Super O’ning’ rice, Shinan ‘Solar’ sea salt, a 30,000won gift certificate for ITGO, domestic red cactus juice and whatever else I am too lazy at the moment to dig through.

Many of the products you could also purchase for up to 50% off so make sure to bring enough cash. Let me give you an example, you know the brand, ‘ZAK!’? These unique pieces of dinnerware founded by Irv Zakheim are currently sold in Kosney stores of Korea. I remember looking to purchase a set of plates for a friend’s birthday once and let’s just say I almost swallowed my own tongue! These items usually price at triple what you’d expect at supermarkets, around 8,000 to 20,000won and a limited stock of these products are being sold at this exhibit for 30-40% off…a great way to save on holiday gifts.

I try to prevent myself from actually buying anything but of course, I once again failed. Being selective and ruthless with exhibitors, I was however able to weasel some great bargains and even managed to get a 40,000 skin care set for free!  So except for some cash, make sure to come empty handed.

While walking through the endless rows in 2 separate halls (one for domestic products, the other for international, etc) staff members generously provided samples of companies looking to export or populate their products in Korea. Alcohol being one of the major focuses, you can stroll from booth to booth while sipping red/white wine by Grand Coteau, Myanmar’s lager and double strong beer, endless cups of sake from Japan’s corner and of course Korea’s staples soju and makgeoli from all ends.

Other samples that I really enjoyed, such as seafood crackers by Pekatan, Na Na Food’s dried fruit chips, and hangwa (traditional cookies), I made sure to ask questions about purchasing methods. Although most do bulk orders, they all relayed the hope of one day making their products a staple in our country’s supermarkets. And it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the products began to pop-up within the next few years…an interesting and prospective thought for the still ‘struggling’ range of varieties currently available in Korea

Last evening, the bunch of us gathered at Nolboo Hangari Galbi, the Korean BBQ restaurant situated in Orchard Central, to celebrate Min’s birthday in advance. The actual day falls on the 22nd, but due to conflicting schedules, we decided to meet up earlier.

The birthday girl, together with Thomas, Lisa, Beth, Jenny and I, had a great time enjoying the Korean cuisine, and of course, not forgetting the usual catching ups. I especially adored the Soju (燒酒) and Baekseju (百歲酒) that we ordered… Been yearning for it since the last time we had them in another restaurant. Haha…

The plan for a Christmas gathering was also one of the agendas during the dinner, and Beth volunteered to be the organizer for the event. We drew lots for the gift-exchange, and I’m guessing it’s gonna be the main topic for all of us till the 21st of December. LOL~

Happy Birthday Min, and may all your wishes for the next 12 months come true… =)

Group photo

Min, the birthday girl, with Tommy and me.

Me, Beth and Lisa

The brithday girl with her pressie

Check out some of the latest Waiguoren’s Weblog discoveries. All listed websites are FREE (or come with a decent free account option). No trials or buy-to-use craplets. For more cool websites and web app reviews subscribe to Waiguoren’s Weblog Directory.

Geumbokju
Company, Beopju geumbokju and product information, geumbok Cultural Foundation, more jobs.
 http://www.kumbokju.co.kr/
 
 
  President Casting
Manufacturing specialist liquor, soju are cool, mainstream dictionaries, such as alcoholic provide self-diagnostics. 
http://www.c1soju.co.kr/

 Source:dcsportbikes.com

  Place barley midrib
Shenyang, Suzhou manufacturer brand, product, barley, efficacy and dietary usages, cultivation practices, such as providing information. 
http://www.borisojumac.co.kr/
 
 
  Bombom
President Casting Suzhou brand, product, events, photos, videos and more. 
http://www.bombomsoju.co.kr/
 
 
  Shenyang
Shochu, a professional manufacturer, maleulrin, saechan, including hwimori Products Export mainstream information. 
http://www.koreasoju.co.kr/
 
 

  Sseonpeuraja
Information professional site liquor, sake, Japanese sake, Traditionalism, Japanese shochu manufacturing method for providing such information. 
http://www.sunplaza21.com/
 
 
  Andong Soju excellent
Suzhou manufacturing specialist, and product information are Andong soju. 
http://www.ilpoomsoju.com/

Ohturin
Shenyang, Suzhou brand, product, events, photos, videos and more. 
http://www.3021.co.kr/

Ipsaeju
Suzhou site ipsaeju bohaeyangjo Millennium leaf, maple sap, maple syrup, providing news events.
http://www.yipsejoo.co.kr/
 
 
  Good Day
Jiri natural ambansu, Suzhou introduced, advertising and event information, alcohol and health information. 
http://www.joeunday.co.kr/
 
 
  The two careers
Suzhou career brand, product, Wallpaper, events, videos and more.
Popularity http://www.jinroj.com/
 

Chamsoju
About chamsoju geumbokju site, Traditionalism, Andong Soju race Beopju Production Guide, available gallery. 
http://www.charmsoju.com/
 

  Chamisul fresh
Chamisul fresh career site, career Suzhou, Chamisul About Fresh, advertising and event information. 
http://www.chamisulfresh.com/
 
 
  Cool, like the first time
Cool site, like the first shochu liquor BG Lotte brand introduction, CF, advertising and event information. 
http://www.coolsoju.co.kr/
 

  Chungbuk Suzhou
Professional manufacturer of liquor, soju brands are cool, Chungbuk, sulyiyagi information, providing community. 
http://www.cbsoju.com/
 
  

Hite Soju
Iksan, Jeollabuk madong location, Hite casting, treasure, huiseoksik, such as Suzhou jeungryusik product. 
http://www.hitesoju.com/
 
  

Halla Suzhou
Liquor manufacturers, products, wine origin, class, knowledge, and shochu are fair, the press release more. 
http://www.hallasan.co.kr/

Well, I’m here. Around 7800 miles and 22 hours later and I arrived in sunny Jangyu (except it was night so it was dark as opposed to sunny. The flights weren’t as bad as I thought they’d be, watched ‘Up’ between Heathrow and Dubai – an ok film, 6 thumbs up; and watched ‘G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra’ between Dubai and Seoul – just really really bad, 3 thumbs up. Then there was a short flight down to Gimhae where the only thing I watched was myself, in weird out of body experiences, as I fell asleep repeatedly for periods of about 10 seconds.

Jangyu, where I’m living is a smallish new town that was built primarily so that people could live here, paying low rent and breathing clean air whilst commuting to the larger towns and cities. It’s mostly made up of tall faceless apartment towers, shops and tonnes of places to eat. I’m pretty sure that everywhere in Korea is a place to eat. It’s about half an hour by bus from Busan which is the second largest city in the country.

I got to my apartment at around 10pm local time and after offending the landlord by not taking my shoes off before I went inside (I knew I was supposed to but it completely slipped my mind) and collapsed into what I assumed would be a sort of condensed hibernation. Unfortunately it wasn’t, and I woke up at around 4am and just lay there for a bit.

Anyway, over the next couple days I got to know my bosess of the two hagwons I’d be working at, the other teachers and some of the kids. Got a health check done – apparently I’m blood type A+ which is disappointingly common. I also don’t have AIDS so that’s nice. They’re both small schools each with one director who is also a teacher, one Korean teacher and now me. I’m working Monday, Wednesday, Friday at one, and I’ll leave it up to you to figure out when I’m working at the other (hint: I get weekends off).

The week just gone I started teaching classes. It’s pretty daunting when your just chucked into a class and told to teach them for 50 minutes without any kind of prep time or materials, but I blagged my way through, even though it would have been easy to comply with the kids’ wishes of  “TEACHER! GAME!” I’ve found it surprisingly tiring generally, there are never more than 8 or 9 of them in a class, and usually it’s just 4 or 5, but you’ve got to be alert to what they’re doing all the time otherwise they get bored and then you lose them.

Outside of teaching I’ve tried new food like kimchi, donkkaseu, Korean BBQ, some raw fish, the weirdest sandwich in the world – was asked “Is ham and cheese ok?” said “Yes.” got ham, cheese, egg, bean sprouts, white cabbage, carrot, mustard, something that tasted like smooth Branston pickle, and a bit of gherkin. Now, it was good. Really good. But it was just unexpected and very very weird. And messy. Generally the food here is pretty great, although buying any western food you tend to have to go to one of the bigger supermarkets – there’s a Homeplus (Tesco) in the next town over.

Outside of teaching and eating I’ve met a few other foreigners. About 12 or so of us went out in Changwon which is a bigger town than Jangyu about 10-20 minutes away by car/bus. We went for Korean BBQ, went to a soju bar – that stuff is so cheap! You can by a 360ml bottle for 1000 won (about 50p) but it gives you the worst hangover ever. Went to a couple of ‘western bars’ where there are just loads of, you guessed it – westerners. For some reason it felt weird to see so many. But both were decent places. Also tried out a Korean club, normally I don’t think we would be allowed in, but as there were a couple of natives with us we were given a pass. The urinals overlooked the whole club, they were on a balcony of sorts – it felt wrong. Also met a bunch of foreigners who live right here in Jangyu and went to a noraebang – ended up rocking out with a rendition of ‘Shout’ by Tears for Fears. Good times!

Outside of all of that, haven’t had much chance to properly explore, but hopefully soon.

Now, pictures!

Jangyu is about here

This is the building where I live.

Don't have to worry about losing keys, just memory.

My apartment. Kitchen is through the glass doors, bathroom is through the other one.

View from my window. Including, pile of stones, vegetable patches, not yet built building, church (with neon cross) and mountain.

To the west of my building.

To the south.

To the east.

More west.

The way I walk to work.

The building I work in 3 days a week.

…and a couple of extra shots of around my corner of Jangyu…

I’ll get some more photos done of a wider area in time. Until then.

In the suburbs of Annandale, in a dull, nondescript brick building, is a bustling attraction.  Until recently, it was only identified by giant posters of grilled meats, vegetables, and Korean writing.  So if you couldn’t read it, then you could only hope that the saliva-inducing images led you to Honey Pig Gooldaegee.  Literally translated, it means Oink Pig.

That’s cute.  Unless you’re a pig.

As you walk through the entrance, be prepared to be greeted by loud Korean pop music, and the smell of grilling meat.  It’s a flurry of activity–crowded, noisy, bustling with servers wielding tongs and scissors.  Don’t bring your baby here. Trust me.

Sit down as plates of banchan whirl before your eyes.  You can snack on these complementary “small appetizers” as they fire up the grill.  They’re a little different each time; wilted spinach, potato salad, spicy kimchi, dried cuttlefish, seaweed salad, spicy tofu.

I recommend the Spicy Pork Bellies–enormous slices of bacon that look like what Jack’s giant had for breakfast.  Fee-fi-fo-fum! I smell the blood of Sam Gyup Sal!

After your server deftly cooks the meat, she’ll cut it into bite-size pieces to accompany your rice and steamed eggs–a light, airy soufflé garnished with scallions and paprika.  Or take a crisp leaf of lettuce, fill it with meat, rice, spicy sauce, and now you’re eating like the natives do.

Ever try Soju?  It’s a distilled alcohol made from rice.  It tastes and looks like vodka, but lighter and sweeter.  You can either sip it from a shot glass, or add a shot to your beer.  I like Cass or Hite Beer.

Before their write-up in Washingtonian’s Cheap Eats edition, very few non-Koreans knew about Honey Pig Gooldaegee.  Now they’ve got an influx of new customers, and a new sign in English to show the way.

My own non-Korean experience has been that the servers at Honey Pig Gooldaegee are hopeful and polite when they ask me to order.  When they realize I don’t understand them, they look annoyed.  That’s where my boyfriend comes in.  He speaks Korean, but he’s Italian.  Boy, do they get confused.

The best thing about Honey Pig Gooldaegee is that it’s open 24 hours.  Now I’m “gool-gool-ing” with delight!

Thing 1: Soju, makkoli and tequila do not mix.

Thing 2: my mobile is a god damn TV.

yes, this is no photoshop

( Source )

With apologies to those readers that have come to expect more serious posts on this blog, but I thought this was an exceptionally cute picture of UEE (유이)!

Yes, even I need to let my hair down on occasion. And of course I’m well aware that it’s part and parcel of Lotte’s marketing of its new Cheoum Cheoreom Cool (처음처럼 쿨) brand of soju to women, which strangely uses the sexual availability of, well, women as its main theme, and that both it and others in the series have been extensively photoshopped. Despite her resulting rather alien-looking legs though, I think she looks simply incredible in the orange top, and hope it becomes fashionable.

Have any Korea-based readers seen it in real life yet?

If you’ve ever been to a sushi restaurant with me you’d know I love sea urchin (“uni” in Japanese).  The part of the sea urchin that you actually eat is the ovaries, called corals or roe, and it’s a culinary delicacy in many parts of the world. It’s hard to describe the taste but to me it’s like savory clean ocean water if that makes sense. Some people describe the taste as “umami” which is the fifth taste sensation school didn’t teach you about (the other four are sweet, salty, sour, and bitter).

Usually I eat the uni Japanese style as sashimi or regular sushi but yesterday I stopped by the Halal Market and picked up some amazing olive oil and instantly remembered this episode of No Reservations where Anthony was in Greece and had some sea urchin. Here’s the clip…

(skip to about 1:40 to see what I’m talking about)

Here’s the olive oil I got from the market

And here’s that amazing sea urchin in olive oil, fresh lemon juice, cilantro and a little sea salt.

Eaten on toasted flat bread. Fucking amazing!

Dinner last night at Avocado was like a multi cultural club. Mushroom enchiladas and mango salsa from Mexico, beer from Japan, soju from Korea and sea urchin in olive oil from Heaven…

Jon and Ashley and galbi

Marisa and galbi looking a little insane

Our flat is certainly very fancy. If by which you take fancy to mean ‘has sparkly wallpaper’. To start with I thought it was condensation or perhaps the building itself sweating. No, our entire flat is decorated in pink wallpaper with engrained glitter. I think this is probably a feature of Korean home design that every aspect should be as gaudy possible. Other than that it is pretty student-like. Quite small and certainly not as fancy as some people’s but apparently not as bad as other’s.

where the magic happens - salute damn you

Days after arriving I was invited to the wedding of some American friends-of-friends-(of friends technically… still, perhaps) who have got hitched after three months (!) of knowing each other. Kinda scary prospect but as far as I could tell they were both pleasant people and I wish them the best of it. Best part: lavish buffet for the reception, complete with a mountain of profiteroles covered in chocolate and cream. Om flipping nom. All of it was Italian/French (styled) food so I’m sure I was among the least excited people – Western food isn’t a craving yet. Although I bought some digestive biscuits today… Anyway, lovely event.

the happy couple

I have also had a chance to meet up with a lovely Korean girl I was with for a while in various locations across the globe. She was kind enough to show me Gyeong Bok Gung palace in Seoul. A truly stunning place, thinking that it is 800 years old. Until the tour guide tells you that actually it’s been burnt down a bunch and rebuilt twice. Once as recently as 1989. Even now it’s still being built and is only 40% of the planned rebuild, to be finished in about 2030. Anyway, read more on the Wikipedias. It’s certainly still very nice to look at and wander around. Although the feeling of being a historical re-enactment filters down to the visible glue holding on the beards of the “guards” in their fancy clothing. Beefeaters they ain’t.

경복궁

not a beefeater

Our day was completed with some more damn delicious korean food at pins-and-needles inducing tables and what essentially boiled down to a soju drinking competition.

하영 and delicious food

Putting me in good stead for my first day at work, the next day, but that is another story and another blog post.

—-

Edits:

I have edited a sentence about Ha-Young since publishing to make myself sound less of an ass.

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

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

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

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

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

( Source: Jinro )

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

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

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

When I got home from taekwando last night, my little room seemed much bigger… and much quieter.  I miss my daddy.

It was fun hearing some of Dad’s observations while he was here, especially when they matched up with my own.  He was here for 2 weeks and we were quite the busy little big bees.

“Why is it that the people here are smaller, but the bugs are bigger?  …Come to think of it… other than the bugs, EVERYthing’s smaller!”

“So does the doctor give it after he cuts the umbilical cord… or does the mother give it when baby takes his first step?….. When exactly does a Korean child receive his first cell phone?”

“What’s that smell?!” (When walking through certain patches of Seoul)

His first night, after Jaydon and I picked him up from the airport, we went out for Korean BBQ.  Dad got his first taste of kimchi and soju and liked them both.   Then, we stayed up till 3:30 catching up on the past 6 1/2 months.  Nothin’ like a good night’s sleep before a vigorous vacation, right?

Site of the massacre

On Friday, we headed into Itaewon so Dad could get some clothes tailored, and then met our hiking group at 11:30 pm.  37 of us loaded onto a chartered bus and attempted to sleep through the night before we started our hike at 4 am.

It wasn’t until we unloaded that the 2009 Great Grasshoppah Massacre occurred…

Although it was quite foggy this early in the morning, we had no problem noticing how the parking lot was just swarming with grasshoppers.  ‘Course some of us had just woken up from a 3-hour nap, so many of ‘em got squished, unnoticed, in the unloading process.  I think we took out a few praying mantises as well.  Poor little buggers…

We should get you an "I hiked Juwangsan" shirt to wear to Yosemite.

When we started our hike at 4 am, it was a bit nippy and pitch-black.  We made coffee by the lake and watched the sunrise over the water.  The fact that Dad had arrived to Korea barely 24 hours prior really shocked our group of young hikers, and I was quite impressed myself.  Afterward, we headed to Juwangsan National Park, where we hiked for 6 hours more.  With 4 waterfalls, several temples and hermitages, beautiful scenery, and Japanese, Chinese and Korean war history, we had plenty to look at while on the trails.  Everyone regrouped in the marketplace at the base of the moutain for some makkoli and pajeon (Korean rice wine and pancakes) before we headed off to lunch.

Quite the lively bunch (of trees)

We dined at Hahoe Folk Village in Andong.  It was established way back in the 16th century during the Joseon Dynasty, and it’s been a one-clan community ever since.  It’s a representative collective village for one family, where tile-roofed houses and thatched roofed ones have been quite well conserved for a long time, and -oh yeah- the whole place is surrounded by a river, like one, big, private moat.

This place was a story book come true. We sauntered through highlighter-green rice paddies, mingled with mobs of hand-carved totem poles, wandered around straw huts and old tea houses… all before being ferried across the river on a small, wooden boat in order to hike up the mountain on the other side.  That’s where we were able to get a good view of the entire village, and just as the sun was setting!

THAT'S how the chicken crossed the road...

We also caught the weekly show in Hahoe- a traditional folk mask dance- put on by the village locals (including the owner of the restaurant we had lunch at). Ex-president George W. Bush had been sitting in the same round, outdoor theatre just 2 months before, watching the same show, and the special guest at our performance was a famous Korean theatre director/ multi-millionaire.

Hahoe Folk Mask Dance

We spent Saturday night and Sunday back in Seoul, sightseeing around Insadong and Itaewon.  We caught the tail-end of the Changing of the Guards at Deoksugung palace before touring inside, and then we checked out a couple of concerts there and at City Hall before heading back to Yellow Ribbon.

And on Monday, “Teacher Kaley’s Dad” went back to school after 34 years.

The kids had a blast testing the range of their new-found English vocabulary and asking him any questions they could come up with.  Their ears perked up like puppies’ when they saw all the prizes he had brought from America, including temporary tattoos they proudly sported on their forearms.

Our 5-year-old gang, all tatted up

Pastor took Dad to visit Morning Calm Park in the afternoon and we headed back to Seoul that night for Dad’s fitting at the tailor’s.  We stayed there overnight and Dad went on a DMZ tour Tuesday while I went back to work.  He did a bit of sightseeing alone on Wednesday and hit up Seoul Tower, before meeting me back at school in time for dinner with the Lees at the duck restaurant next door.

…And that was just the first half of his time here…

Vale, ahora ya llevo varios días por aquí… Pero es que la primera impresión fue tan buena que ahora que por fin tengo Internet en casa, hay que dejarlo bien claro… ¡¡¡Adoro Seúl!!!
El viaje ha sido larguísimo, sí; el piloto fue un borrico en el aterrizaje en Amsterdan, también… Pero llegar al aeropuerto, que la temperatura sea ideal (tal vez unos 20º), que todo el mundo (te entiendan o no) traten de ayudarte, que te des cuenta que las cosas están súper baratas (viajes en metro por 90 pesetas, un albergue en el que te tratan de maravilla y te esperan con los brazos abiertos y comida a raudales por 1800 pesetas la noche) y que acabes estando de fiesta hasta las 6 de la mañana en tu primer día dicen mucho de lo recomendable que es esta ciudad. Definitivamente, este año puede ser grandioso.
No todo podía ser bonito y hubo un par de contratiempos: 1) Llegar al albergue: Nos perdimos miserablemente. Nos bajamos una parada más tarde de lo que debíamos y luego no había forma de que nos situáramos correctamente, pero un amable taxista nos llevó hasta donde debíamos ir. 2) Justo al ir a salir de marcha calló un chaparrón brutal pero, ¿a quién le importa?

Un poquito de cena típica coreana (con unas chuletas que nosotros mismos nos encargamos de hacer), con cerveza y soju para beber (juntos – lo llaman bomba – entran de fábula) y con un montón de nuevos amigos (algunos de ellos recientemente famosos ):

Montones de españoles en un pub con un árbol en el centro:

En el pub de Madonna la gente cuelga billetes y escribe en ellos, ¿véis el de 20 euros?

Algo que poca gente sabe… Madonna es coreana… No os pongo vídeos porque están súper oscuros, quién quiera conocerla en persona, que venga a visitarme:

Y aquí el pakistaní más simpático del mundo. Un tío que al ver que una mujer se despedía de él con dos besos (¡¡esa Mary!!) creyó haber ligado:

¿Que a qué hora me acosté? Lo suficientemente tarde como para que en la calle hubiera esta luz de camino al albergue:

I love Seoul.

The clock has just passed the 10am mark here on Monday, the 28th of September in the Land of the Morning Calm and I find myself sitting at the computer sipping some wonderful green tea, reflecting on the past few days.

The end result… the weekend has been fantastic. I largely just lounged around the apartment, reading a book Jo sent me and caught up on a few films. I also went running several times and have decided to resume running at 11.3kph (7mph) at the gym. The reason is that running at 10kph is too easy. I can manage a good 8+km run each day before I get tired. While that is great for overall fitness, it takes roughly an hour to get the full 10km in and I want to spend my time doing other things.

This is especially important, as I have a few projects that I have in the hopper. The first of which is a short little video I want to do this week, since its Chuseok (주석) this weekend. This has great significance here, since it is often billed as the Korean Thanksgiving. It’s a great holiday, that will also allow me to have four days off.

The other project is far more vast: It’s a feature-length documentary.

Earlier this year, I met a professor at one of the Universities in Korea. He had an idea and a vision to tell a story. Two weeks ago, we set out and filmed some bits and sat down yesterday to cut the initial pieces together. It will be a long project, with the actual principle filming beginning in 2010. The nice thing about the project, is that I serve as an editor and videographer, rather than director.

The working relationship we have is fantastic – a great melding of skills. I can’t wait to share with you what we have come up with thus far. It should be up and ready for viewing in a few weeks.

In some other news, I’ve been getting a lot of interest in the soju bit from MBC. People have been asking a few questions about the piece, so I thought I would take some time and answer them:

1) Did MBC contact me? No they didn’t. I was informed by a student about the piece a few days after it aired.

2) Did MBC get permission to use the video or cite credit? Not that I’m aware of; however, last year I did license the video to Jinro for marketing use.

3) Have you contacted MBC about the video? No I haven’t and don’t intend to do so. Some other media stations have contacted me over the past year regarding the video, and it continues to get a lot of hits, but at this juncture, I’m focused on getting my other projects off the ground.

Probably the thing I’m most looking forward to this week is the Ken Burns’ National Parks series debueting on PBS this evening. I’ll have to wait a while before I can actually see it, but since I have a great love of the Parks, the Grand Canyon, Tonto, and Mesa Verde, I can’t wait to see this series has in store. Over the past weekend, all of the parks had free entry. In this day and age of computers, I find is sad that so few young people take the time to explore the National Parks.

MBC Screen Capture

I walked into my local coffee shop on Thursday and didn’t receive my usual, “Hi Steve,” greeting. What I did get was, “Oh my gosh, I saw you on TV the other day!”

This kind of caught me by surprise, since I hand filmed any bits for television this year and I thought that they had possibly seen some of my newer YouTube Videos.

Nope.

After some questioning, I found out the MBC Morning News ran a story a few days earlier and I was part of it. It of course had to do with soju.

It took a little digging, but on of my friends was finally able to find the video on the MBC website and show me the story. Essentially, they were showing foreigners enjoying soju. This apparently is a big topic these days (I’m not sure why). My Soju video from 2008 was in the video for about 2 or 3 seconds, but showed me explaining a little bit about the drink.

I had been wondering why I was getting more hits and subscriptions… now I know why.

Night life_Seoul_Sept2009, originally uploaded by Buddha’s Breakfast.

Central Seoul has a wealth of streets with hundreds of places to each and drink. The esteem that food is held in here is similar to Hong Kong, however the Koreans drink! Soju anyone?

Watching one of Lotte’s commercials for its new Cheoum Cheoreom Cool (처음처럼 쿨) soju dozens of times…as one does…then many thoughts come to mind, but that it is being effectively marketed towards women isn’t one of them. Yet weren’t they the main reason low-alcohol soju brands were launched in the first place?

As those objectified breasts and buttocks helpfully remind us, Cheoum Cheoreom Cool’s alcohol content is 16.8%, so take the examples of the two closest brands in terms of alcohol content for instance: Daesun’s Bom Bom (봄봄, 16.7%) launched in April, and Muhak’s Joeunday (좋은데이, 16.9%) launched in November 2006 (see here for a helpful graphic comparing all three), and both of those were indeed aimed towards women.

Of the two, Bom Bom’s marketing is the most of interest because Daesun took the very rare step of using a young, photogenic male in its advertisements. But while Muhak’s own campaign was ultimately unsuccessful (commercials released after early-2007 are difficult to find, and Joeunday’s website is no longer available, although the drink is still being produced), its use of then 28 and 36 year-old female and male entertainers Chae Yeon (채연) and Jung Jun-ho (정준호) respectively was also significant as a partial, albeit somewhat ambiguous attempt to appeal to a much older female demographic than all the other campaigns considered here.

( Source: Muhak )

Combined with the knowledge that only 30% of soju drinkers are women then, it would be very tempting to interpret the introduction of increasingly weaker soju drinks over the last decade in terms of a women-centered advertising narrative, with all the changes to Korean drinking culture, gender relations, and Korean women’s body-images that that would imply. That would be quite mistaken however, as simply saving on costly alcohol is just as powerful a motivator for soju companies, and actually the vast majority of new brands are still exclusively targeted towards men (take Bohae’s Ipseju (잎새주; 19.5%), which I wrote about in April). In particular though, there is the fact that Lotte and Jinro take up 12.6% and 78% of the country’s soju market respectively, and so regardless of the innovations of other companies, it is the logic behind the marketing campaigns of these companies that is the most important.

In that vein, the case of Jinro’s J (제이, 18.5%) is very interesting: launched in October last year, I praised it for its original marketing, but it was still definitely aimed at 20-somethings of both sexes. In June this year though, a new marketing campaign specifically aimed towards getting women to associate the brand with staying slim was launched. In addition, when Lotte bought Doosan’s liquor arm in January this year (after an unsuccessful attempt to buy Jinro in 2005), it inherited a contract with Lee Hyori (이효리) from November 2007, and the logic to her commercials for Cheoum Cheoreom (처음처럼) was similarly getting (female) consumers to associate the brand with her slim body.

Which is what made this latest effort from Lotte so confusing:

In hindsight, it’s actually a little derivative of Jinro’s original effort, in which “1032″ refers to the depth from which the water used to prepare the drink is taken from the sea:

Granted, Lotte’s video briefly objectifies men too. Not that that somehow justifies the objectification of women in it of course…or that I’ll feign offense at either. Rather, it aroused me my interest because it reminded me of this:

…some advertisers, aware of the objections of the feminist movement to traditional images of women in ads, have incorporated the criticism into their ads, many of which now present an alternative stereotype of the cool, professional, liberated women…Some agencies trying to accommodate new attitudes in their campaigns, often miss the point and equate ‘liberation’ with a type of aggressive sexuality and very unliberated coy sexiness.

Dyer, G. (1982) Advertising as Communication, pp. 185-186, quoted in Strinati, D. (1995) An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, pp. 187-188)

Is that what is occurring here? Deciding to investigate then, I was stuck by the Korean media’s interest in the marketing campaign also, albeit for two entirely different reasons.

First, having an alcohol content under 17% means that commercials can be screened on television after 10pm, and hence that the alcohol content of soju drinks would eventually reach that level has long been predicted by industry analysts. Even more presciently though, back in March one said:

…if you go under 17% you blur the boundary with low-alcohol drinks. Because you gain the ability to have TV ads at less than 17%, you could be promoting drinking cultures and exposing teenagers to it, so the authorities may stop you.”

And as this Korean source reveals, last week the rules were indeed changed. But Joeunday’s commercials wouldn’t have been particularly corrupting of Korean youth, nor Daesun’s commercial below with Kang Dong-won (강원도), on Korean screens since August 1, so this was probably a direct reaction to the launch of Cheoum Cheoreom Cool in late August.

Only Daeson suffered though, as in anticipation of the negative publicity and the government’s intentions, spokespeople for Lotte said that they never decided not to make television commercials (see here and here). Which brings me to the second reason for the intense media interest in it: Lotte deciding not to use Lee Hyori to endorse the drink, despite her still easily being Korea’s biggest sex-symbol, and notorious for always sexing-up advertisements and pushing the limits of Koreans’ supposed Confucian reserve (see here and here). Apparently, in nearly 2 years promoting Cheoum Cheoreom, she hadn’t brought around the turnaround in fortunes expected (update: these statistics dispute that).

But in fairness to Lee Hyori, Doosan was in the midst of reorganizing itself into a holding company centered around heavy industries when it hired her, and in hindsight the same company that had just bought the world’s biggest maker of construction equipment earlier that year was not necessarily the best one to transform the image of the drinks in the eyes of 20-somethings: see here and here for the ensuing advertising disasters. Hence the consternation caused earlier this week when it was revealed that while she would continue to promote Cheoum Cheoreom, relatively unknown UEE (유이) would be used for Cheoum Cheoreom Cool instead (but not replacing Lee Hyori, as this blog naturally but mistakenly stated), and with the combination of the two Lotte hopes to bring their market share up to 15%.

Which is why it is UEE that graces the front page of all Korean portal sites as I type this, and as it turns out, what I’d seen was merely one of many pre-launch commercials and advertisements based on the theme of “168 ,” most of which were rather inane. Here then, is the commercial Lotte really wants you to remember:

In it, UEE begins with “오빠 나 쿨해, 내가 진짜 처음이야?”, which roughly translates as (to the guys she’s dating) “I’m cool…am I really your first?”. After that, the first guy just mutters nonsense, and later she says “쿨하게 생각해!” or…er…”Think Cooly,” and she finishes with “원샷. 어! 상쾌해!”, or “One shot! Oh! It’s sweet!”.

Consider these accompanying advertisements also, released at the same time:

( Source: Naver )

(Source: Naver)

The text in the first reads: “Q: Honest. 남친이랑 여행할땐, 솔직히 말하는게 Cool 할걸까? MT 간다고 뻥치는게 Cool 할건까? A: Think Casual”, or “When you travel with your boyfriend, which is cooler: admitting it to your parents, or lying and saying you’re going on a trip with your university friends?”. And in the second: “Q : Love 키스할때 눈을 감고 하는게 Cool 하니? 쳐다 보면서 하는게 Cool 하니? A : Think Casual”, or “When you kiss, which is cooler? With your eyes closed or staring at your partner?”. In addition, many bottles of the drink will be sold with blue or pink bottletops, with the above messages or similar ones printed on the labels (see the video here at 0:31 to see those). And despite the former ostensibly being directed towards women, one might speculate that the message with the blue text might actually appeal more to men, and only with the pink or red more to women.

And so considering: the bicep in the prelaunch advertisements and commercials; their kissing scenes (albeit no longer remarkable in Korean advertising); and now these, with the intention of showing “how cool women behave,” then of course the marketing campaign is also aimed towards them. Even possibly the de rigueur “sexy dance” below too, as even though UEE was chosen because of her popularity among 20-something men, such dances are often used to advertise products to women also:

As an aside,  several sources describe the dance as simultaneously sexy and pure and innocent, but without any apparent trace of irony: something that won’t surprise Brian in Jeollanam-do, who has often criticized the bastardization of the word in the Korean language. I wonder though, if that adds to the argument that it is intended for both female and male consumption? Regardless, here’s a video of the making of it also, and although I find personally find that they ruin the fantasy element to commercials myself, they are also important elements to marketing campaigns these days (and I speculate more popular among women than men):

By this stage then, you will probably not be surprised to find that most of the Korean sources I’ve linked to do in fact mention that the drink was aimed at both sexes (although one adds that it would have been more logical to exclusively aim it towards women). But rather than simply provide that information at the beginning, I decided to roughly replicate the process by which I came to find that information for myself, hopefully providing a good overview of the current state of soju advertising in the process (but which should definitely be read in conjunction with this one from June).

And also to resist my temptation to merely assume that the marketing campaign with UEE both reflects and/or is the harbinger of more sexually assertive images of women in Korean advertising. After all, considering that: the recession has already forced advertisers of all stripes to rely on consumers’ basic instincts; soju companies have nothing but the profit incentive in mind; and if they don’t see (hyper)objectification of women for a male gaze as incompatible with the commensurate goal of selling soju to women, confirming the suspicions that first came to mind as discussed, then that doesn’t bode well for reducing Korean women’s excessive worries about their appearances.

And yet regardless of the motivations behind them, one still can’t help but reflect on all the changes to women’s images in soju advertising in recent years, not all of which have been negative. Granted, I have often exaggerated the depth and positive impact of those changes in the past. But let me leave you with the fact that this alternate image of women was the norm less than two years ago:

At the very least then, we can all agree on the pace of change…just one reason why Korean sociology is so interesting!

Ce soir direction City hall pour apparemment voir le centre décoré par des lanternes. A notre arrivé, rien ??? Donc nous avons marché jusqu’à un concert. Le concert était en playback car lors d’une chanson le son c’est arrêté 5 fois. Tout d’un coup, alors qu’il y avait une guitare et un piano. Bon, c’était marrant quand même. Il y avait beaucoup de monde et même les policiers filmaient la scène.

La scène

Malheureusement c’est que lors de notre retour que les lanternes se sont allumées. On a réussit à prendre quelques photos mais apparemment nous n’étions pas au bon endroit. Le peu que j’ai vu m’a quand même plu.

Un dragon en lanterne

Des oiseaux

Surtout sur le retour également nous avons croisé un cortège plutôt bizarre.

Sojumen

Soju dance

C’est un cortège dans la rue de bouteilles de soju!!!!!! Ces bouteilles dansaient sur des musiques du moments. Enorme !!! Un vidéo sera disponible plus tard.