happy hanooka!

do you celebrate hanooka?

delicious cool piss.

a chaser of choice while at a daejeon bar.

i'm not the first anglophone to enjoy this delicious plum juice, whose name sounds an awful lot like "cool piss."

soko's wacky budget airline bonanza

jin air, a subsidiary of korean air, is one of korea's most promising new budget airlines, but i can't handle the turned hats.

back in september of 2006, i booked a $19 (+tax) roundtrip ticket on malaysia's air asia. the prospect of being airborne for so little was intriguing. sure, i was flying from kuala lumpur to the very unpopular destination of kota bharu (local slogan: the islamic city!), but c'mon, $19?

i was struck by how inexpensively one can fly in southeast asia... especially when originating out of KL or bangkok. this just ain't the case in pricey northeast asia, where 2-hour trips between seoul and tokyo still run $600+ this time of year.

a glut of budget airlines is coming to korea. an asterisk means future projections.

but 2008 promises to fill korea's air with a glut of new budget carriers. a total of 5 new airlines are launching this year, with two already in operation. last week, the busan-based yeongnam air launched its inaugural flight between seoul's gimpo (mostly domestic) international airport and the lovely jeju island. by the end of the year, they plan to service four domestic routes that concentrate on yeongnam, which is korea's southeastern region. in fact, bonafide yeongnam residents receive a 5-10% discount... which is kinda weird.

a week prior, jin air, the budget arm of tiffany-blue korean air, had their own maiden voyage on a 189-seat boeing 737-800. jin is so easy breezy cool that their flight attendants, called "jinis" (yes, from the lamp) wear t-shirts and jeans and their check-in counter features a dj. although initial plans were to call the airline air korea, they switched to "jin," whose chinese character can mean "true" or "genuine", or, it can sound like how koreans pronounce "jeans", which is appropriate since they wear them. which came first, the outfits or the name? regardless, what's even better is their slogan: "fly, better fly - jin air." oh, wait... their logo looks like a butterfly... which sounds a lot like "better fly". clever! painful! starting late next year, jin plans to fly to japan as well as to china and southeast asian destinations.

sure hansung airlines has had some safety issues, but i'm liking the professionalism. can you imagine how bad it would look if jin air's nickelodeon rugrats get associated with some kind of (god forbid) mishap?

hansung airlines is korea's oldest budget carrier (inaugural flight in 2005). the cheongju-based airline has offered the popular seoul (gimpo) to jeju route at half the typical $200+ cost of the major airlines. although hansung experienced early popularity, it suspended service for a coupla months in 2005-06 to search for additional funding. adding literal injuries to that insult was an accident in november 2006 that broke off their plane's nose and caused six minor cuts and bruises.

i think that's a kitty kat peace sign.

i wish every pilot had a rose, a gun, and kitty paws. thanks chang-bin!

if safety concerns has you second-guessing hansung, please don't. who else's website has a "cabin interview" feature that tells you your flight attendant's hobbies and blood type. for example, now i know that yea-ji shon really likes balloons and that chang-bin lee likes to pretend he's holding a gun while wearing his pilot's uniform. safety!

not to be left out, korea's other major carrier, asiana airlines, will also launch a subsidiary airline this fall. air busan, as it will be called, will start operations in october. two other low-cost carriers are also planned before year's end. in november, eastar jet is scheduled to start service, with incheon-tiger (co-owned by the city of incheon and singapore airlines) to kick off in december, eventually hoping to serve japan, china, mongolia and the russian far east. a few others, like purple jet, daeyang air, pocheon air, kostar airlines and seoul airlines have all been knocked about though it's unclear which (if any) will materialize. good lawd. how about some consolidation already.

the seagull looks very stuffed.

korean aviation restrictions require new carriers to have at least 2 years of domestic test-runs before going international. the new companies are eager to go abroad since that's where the real profits lie. jeju air, which has operated since 2006, already qualifies and offers service to three japanese cities (unfortunately, tokyo ain't one of them).

let's hope some of them get to run some int'l flights before high oil prices push them under!

snapshot #8: i hate (wine and coffee)

surprisingly, this cute shop in "french town" specializes in... wine and coffee.

snapshot #6: excuse me madam...

a very polite question penned in a (men's) bathroom in the ssamzie complex in insa-dong. if more inexperienced men would just ask such questions the world would be a much more satisfied place. good job!

sure, everything is overpriced and it's overrun with tourists... but i still enjoy seoul's insa-dong neighborhood.

konglish encore: gay food

i love these. as an addendum to an earlier post on the topic, some curiously homo konglish food products for your pleasure:

for those of you who need a homo english primer, a "potato queen" is a gay guy (usually asian) who typically only dates white guys. a big box of these should be mailed back to the states, where i'm sure they'd be popular (photo from here).


i bet these are delicious (photo from here).


hmmm looks like someone couldn't resist and already popped this can o' dick sticks open. i wonder what they taste like. and i also wonder how this name was conceived/approved.

field trip #9: sinchon love hotels

as promised, here's post #1 of 2 about sinchon.


new, glassy highrises flank both sides of busy sinchon-ro.

sinchon's main drag is a busy 8-laner with seoul metro's line 2 running below it. the 1-km span from edae station to the 5-way sinchon rotary and subway station is flanked by high-rise office-tels (speaking of konglish, this one is hard to explain), a movie theater, department stores and several english language hagwons (institutes). but if you move just one block north of main street, you'll find a long, uneven and quiet alley. on either side are ugly low-rise brick homes, one-room restaurants, ha-sook jibs (student housing), and at least 40 "love motels", starting with "motel good time" on one end all the way to "hotel reem" at the other. choose your pleasure.

actually, this feels pretty seedy.

back in the day, my neighborhood was supposedly a small but notorious red light district popular with american soldiers. although "club 88 sexyland" and "sexy han bar: always on my mind" are still outside my door, and apparently on my mind, sinchon doesn't feel especially seedy. while it's obvious why the love motels charge by the hour, they're not brothels.

the popularity of love motels is in part a response to korea's stubborn confucian culture. it's estimated that less than 5% of korean couples live together before marriage. since the vast majority of korean young people stay with their parents until marriage, it's typical for korean men and women in their late 20s to remain under their parents' roofs. love motels provide young love birds (and adulterers, alike) a clean and comfortable place to perform their shenanigans.

a horrendous montage reflecting my mood after several days holed up sick.

the love motel phenomenon is better known in japan, and the nihons will take themed-anything to its extreme. tho less remarkable, korean love motels are quite kitschy, flaunting a "cheapo fancy" vibe a la christmas lights year-round, neon signage, plastic flowers, very few windows and building materials usually consisting of glossy synthetics that won't last long. discretion is a primary concern, so some love motels have touch screen self-check-in. most hang vinyl curtains to conceal patrons' faces. if that's insufficient, some garages kindly conceal your car's license plates just in case your spouse is lurking about the neighborhood.

didn't come prepared? no bother.

inside, the rooms are usually clean and pleasant. amenities typically include dvd players, internet and large lcd tvs with cable. many rooms have jacuzzis and, in case you forgot where you were, vending machines that sell condoms, lube, breath strips, toothbrushes, sex toys, etc. i saw a few motels advertise the availability of online multi-user role playing games, like world of warcraft. sounds like a girlfriend's worst nightmare.

my favorite aspect of love motels is their names, which are exclusively in konglish and try to evoke either 1) the hifalutin life: e.g. motel paradise, royal park, noblesse and hotel luxury, 2) sexual innuendo: motel touch, boom, eros, reem, and good time, or, 3) lost in translation: masstige motel chic, hotel echae and e'zen hotel (electronic zen? ease-in?). my favorite is a little place half-way up the hill called motel eegee (korean pronunciation of "easy"). i'd like to hope that i'd be offended if my date took me to motel easy.

classy decor.

if he did, however, chances are the night would run about $50, which isn't bad for a clean and comfortable room. a tip: if you don't want to be surrounded by (other peoples') sex sounds all night, choose a motel a few doors off the main drag.

getting there:

→ if you want to see sinchon's love motel strip for yourself, take subway line 2 to sinchon station (exit #3). walk away from the rotary but veer right at first opportunity to wander off main path.
→ or, take one of several busses that go to sinchon rotary (153).

a konglish primer

the joy of language.

technically, "konglish" is when (mostly) english or english-derived words are used in korean vernacular, typically with grammatical and/or usage errors. while it isn't typically as bold or wonderful as its japanese younger brother, engrish, this guy's thesis posits that a single word, "konglish," has fully permeated the korean vernacular, whereas the same can't be said of "chinglish" or "japlish" (the latter sounds awful).

snarky in any language (sorry, i can't remember where i found this image).

in my experience, there are several kinds of konglish:

1. word(s) retain their original grammar and usage.
2. grammar and/or usage has changed but connection to original loan word can be made.
3. direct connection to original word(s) cannot be made.
4. all the above but in reverse... korean words that have been integrated into english vernacular.

re: #1, for example, "ice cream," (아이스 크림) "wine" (와인) and "computer" (컴퓨터) are all standard words in korean. the pronunciation is different, but the word(s) and meaning are identical.

in the case of #2, however, some local or otherwise non-american flavor has been added. "haen-deu-pone" (핸드폰) is what most koreans call their cell phones. while foreign to american ears, the term was borrowed from english's other bastard child, singaporean english (singlish) ...in my experience all singlish is unintelligible to american ears.

additionally, in the 20th century, many konglish words came from japanese phonological derivations of english, thus "apartment" (アパート or a-pā-to in nihonese), became "a-pa-teu" (아파트) in korean. but, in korea most a-pa-teu are owner-occupied, whereas in the states, an "apartment" suggests a rent-paying tenant.

파이팅! (from here.)

somewhere in-between #2 and #3 is a common exclamation that escapes precise translation. if you live here, no doubt you've already seen (or indulged in, yourself) a feel-good "hwa-ee-ting!" (화이팅) with a smile and a raised, clenched fist (another variation is "pa-ee-ting!" (파이팅!) - thanks amanda). sure, it was taken from "fighting!" someways back, but the korean meaning is more along the lines of a "if you don't give up there will be victory!" sentiment.

in my opinion, "seo-be-seu" (서비스) definitely takes us into category 3. it's supposed to sound like "service," but really means "on the house," as when a restaurant's ajumma brings your table a round of free "sa-ee-da"'s (사이다) from the fridge. that beverage, which sounds like "cider," is just korean for 7-up. ...then again, don't u.s. southerners call every carbonated beverage "a coke"?

re: #4 (the growing number of korean words that are being absorbed into the english vernacular), that's another post for another day.

let's go live at "we've"!

i admit that i am a little frustrated by the doosan company's apartment complexes around seoul that are simply named, "we've". not the slightly better, "let's," but, "we've." and, yes, there are many times that menus or instructions intended for english-speakers are horribly mangled. that aside, it's tiring to overhear another favorite past-time of english-speaking expats in korea, which is to laugh hysterically at / become hysterically mad about, the ubiquity of konglish in signage and on clothing. maybe it's because most are english teachers, but there's an obvious point they miss.

i've noticed that many koreans love wearing clothing covered in long, rambling, nonsensical konglish. these passages are brief (not much of a canvas) but capture the essence of konglish (left from here, right from here).

less than 2% of seoul's 10+ million residents are foreigners. of those, only 12% come from english-speaking nations (i'm generously including india, bangladesh and the philippines). do you really think all these konglish signs were made for you, mr. english teacher?

more than likely, they're for korean companies marketing to their overwhelmingly korean customer base. because english is the globe's vehicular language (lingua franca), it makes sense that countries would take some hip american english (global!), but change it to fit their cultural reality (local!). this does not make koreans or other english language learners stupid or in need of a better copy editor. i mean, most amurricans can't even speak 2 languages fluently (myself included).

...and before you hate on the hate-deserving "korea, sparkling!" slogan, it was a british dude who was paid six u.s. figures to come up with it.

clone art baby birth

behind my apartment. i'll check it out next week and report back.

dear moesha...

aloha from the throes of a ne asia windstorm that had the nerve to topple my terrace parasol and shatter my candle holders to shambles!!! campy enough?

you sound horrible. re: seoul, i've been adopted by a fierce and fabulous bald looks lesbian but isn't mid-40s dancer who enjoys moderate fame. it's been interesting to hear her take on fame and success. as an amurrican, i assume its a short hop from national to international fanclubs... but being famous here is largely irrelevant outside asia.

on to man-kind, where the ironclad closet is packed with fit boys in cute military getups that reflect their mandatory national service, and "straight" rich gangnam boys who, while drunk on soju, like digits gone southbound. no doubt they'll marry some poor lass and continue drunken homo hookups. two of them have reduced me to whispering "g" when referring to our sexual family on the chance saying the word aloud might ruin their lives forever.

but it ain't all bad. i've been dating a nice boy for a few weeks and i wonder if we're gonna get married. but i'm too old, suspicious and superficial to be giddy and pillow talk has been unpredictable. during one intimate moment he told me that i looked like homer simpson. in an exhausting "explanation conversation" that followed (one among so many), it turns out he was just trying to compliment the size of my eyes. anyhow, he helps me with my korean homework, which is good since last week he explained that i had written, "the dead bitch eats a meal" instead of "i cook dinner."

i'm worried about you. lemme know if you need anything... like a skype call, kimchee or.. more recent acquisitions, like waning ambition and satisfaction with mediocrity.

krazy jayne's konglish kitchen

i know the whole engrish/konglish thing is kinda played out, but while drinking some water i noticed that my cousin's spartan dish collection includes an impressive array of konglish. some highlights:

[on a bowl] "best wishes / the permanent possesses / i only belong to you" this sounds like a catchy way to remember a grammar lesson.


[on a glass] "three fresh herb leaves make you so happy"
it's true. two usually aren't enough.


[on a glass] "without love and laughter there is no joy. love abounds in honey and poison. where there is no jealousy there is no love." honey and... poison? yikes.

"korea, sparkling!"

my friends and former coworkers know that i'm an amateur branding/design enthusiast. so it is with great sadness that i tell you how much korea's new tourism slogan and logo suck. i don't know if the old skool "land of the morning calm" was an officially bestowed catchphrase (koreans arent calm), but at least the previous marketing pitch, "dynamic korea," was a coherent reference to korea's dramatic industrialization post-civil war.

from the official korea tourism guide web site:

"Korea, Sparkling" is a marketing brand for Korea tourism, symbolizing the energetic and lively Korean culture and people, which can only be experienced in Korea.

um, ever been to LA?

i've heard that the slogan was designed, in part, to address some peoples' confusion about which korea is which. i guess the north's mass starvation and total isolation doesn't suggest "sparkling". i was doing my best to try and accept the new expression until i saw the logo, which i took as a much greater offense.
yes, friends, a british dude was reportedly paid six figures to create this amateur-ish abomination. two questions: 1) who's tickling the jiggling "spark" in sparkling? and 2) why does korea's official marketing logo include a rough rendering of the hungarian flag? i-ee-goo, so much money for such little talent.

i kinda like this promotional video tho the b-boy bit never fails to send a chill of embarrassment down my spine.

on a related note, the reader comments about the slogan over at the marmot's hole web site remind me why i think i'm going to hate really dislike most white american expats. what are they so angry about? frustrated with losing their unearned privilege when outside of north america? upset when their wax eloquent isn't taken seriously by their korean clients/supervisors? boo hoo. believe me, your asses are still kissed while in the orient. furthermore, while i gather it's weird for you to be in the minority, your horror at the injustice of it all doesn't have me crying a river.

that said, i've talked online with some nice light-complected canadians lately... but aren't canadians always nice, if a bit loquacious and insecure? or, are albertans as bad as i've been told?

about

yup, those are my pants on the couch. for the blogger, clothing below the waist is just distraction.
>more photos of korea (and me)

i grew up on a small island in the northwest corner of the united states. much of my childhood was spent drawing maps, harvesting sea life, and wishing i was puerto rican. after 8 years birthing and then resenting an NGO, it was time to leave identity politics usa-style behind for my mudder's mudderland.

because we share a special temperament, despite being mixed and homo i love korea and he loves me back. korea haters are boring. if you don't take yourself and/or your fetishes too seriously, you may enjoy my inconsistent mix of personal updates with regionally-relevant musings. i love maps. thanks for visiting.

email me here.

fyi: the homepage banner image was extracted from a photo by story sloane, jr., an american g.i. stationed in daegu during the korean war. it was taken in 1951 or 52.