Vaginas & Street Fashion: Two Great Things to Check Out This Weekend!
(Sources, used with permission: left; right)
Two very interesting events this weekend, at both ends of the country!^^
First, this Saturday at 4pm, there will be a performance of “The Vagina Monologues” at Changwon Women’s Development Center, with an after-party to follow: see here for details and further links. And again, guy or girl, I highly recommend it, especially if you’re already in the neighborhood and missed Busan’s performance in February.
Next, this Sunday at 12pm, Michael Hurt will be launching his “The Fashion of the Korean Street” photography exhibition at Cafe Bene, just outside exit #5 of Chungmuro Station in Seoul. Just his name alone surely being enough to persuade The Grand Narrative readers to go(!), please see his Facebook event page or his blog for further details.
Finally, there will be further performances of “The Vagina Monologues” in Jeonju on April the 2nd, in Seoul on April the 2nd and 3rd, and again in Seoul (but in a different location) on April the 9th and 10th. But I’ll remind everyone again closer to the dates.
If there’s any more events anybody would like me to publicize, please let me know in the comments or via email.
Korean Sociological Image #57: Perfect Upper Bodies, But “Healthy” Legs
(Update – to download the video, click here)
Normally, I’d reserve something like this for the next Korean Gender Reader. But then as a friend aptly put it, this video is “totally fucking reprehensible”, and deserves highlighting. And indeed, if it’s not removed from Youtube soon, then we’ll both be contacting ArirangWorld to complain about it.
A quick language note before you begin watching though: a mistake many Korean learners make, including myself, is to complement someone by saying “건강해 보여요”, or literally “healthy [you] look”, not realizing that “healthy” often has connotations of being fat in Korea. And as you’ll soon see, this is carried to simply absurd proportions in the video.
For further context, see Korean Sociological Image #21, on popular calf-reduction surgery.
Update 1: I wrote the following in 2 comments on the ArirangWorld YouTube channel. Or rather, I tried to, as although they registered in the comment count, they never actually appeared. Creating a new account and trying again, for some reason still only the 2nd paragraph squeaked through. Sigh.
As the author of thegrandnarrative.com, the most well-read English language source for information on Korean gender issues, almost every day I learn of the often tragic consequences of the incredibly damaging messages about health, weight, and body image that the Korean media promotes, and have very real concerns about raising my two young daughters here. Will they never exercise, because videos like “Twist in Figures” tell them that toned, healthy legs are unattractive? Will they too, like fully HALF of Korean high school girls, end up so malnourished and anemic from dieting that they are unable to give blood?
I implore ArirangWorld to remove this video immediately, and suggest that an alternative video outlining Korea’s problems in this regard, but also – crucially – demonstrating what positive steps various groups, organizations, and individuals are doing to correct these, would be a far better way of promoting Korea to the outside world.
For more on the shocking statistic about high school girls, see here. And you may also find this advertisement from 2009 interesting:
Update 2: The video has been made private. Which does mean that it can’t be watched at least, but on the other hand choosing to do that rather than simply deleting it could be construed as refusing to admit how problematic it was. Certainly ArirangWorld has yet to make any kind of formal apology for it.
If anyone would still like to see it, then I did save the video before it was made private, but unfortunately at 55MB it’s much too big to send via email. I can send it via Skype though, so please feel free to add me to your list of contacts and request it (my id is “Jtur001″).
Update 3: Although I’d wager I’m a much more pleasant middleman than most(!), you can now avoid me and download the video directly here.
Update 4: See here for the Korea Studies community’s reaction to the video.
(For all posts in the Korean Sociological Image series, see here)
What’s going on in a Gangnam Host Bar at 2am? (Part 2)
( Source )
Part 2 in the series from the Seoul Shinmun, kindly translated by Marilyn; for Part 1 and a wider discussion of what “Host Bars” are exactly, see here. Meanwhile, yes, I realize that those are actually Japanese hosts above, but then I’m afraid images of their less brazen Korean counterparts are rather harder to come by!^^
새벽 2시 강남 ‘호빠’선 무슨 일이… “누나, ‘민짜’ 원해? 있기야 있지”… 여성 탈선 ‘무법지대’ / What’s going on in a Kangnam ‘ho-bba’ at 2 a.m…“Noona, do you want ‘minjja’? Of course we have it!”…A lawless area of female deviance
지난달 말 서울 논현동 유흥가. 새벽 2시 무렵 우성아파트 사거리 일대를 지나 한쪽 골목으로 들어서자 현란하게 네온사인을 밝힌 유흥주점이 줄지어 나타났다. 이 중에서 룸살롱과 호스트바가 ‘1, 2부 형식’(저녁에는 룸살롱, 새벽에는 호스트바)으로 운영된다는 K업소를 찾았다.
At the end of last month in Seoul’s Nonhyeon-dong adult entertainment district, after passing the area around the Woo-seong Apartment Complex intersection at about 2 a.m. and entering an alley to one side, adult entertainment bars with flashy neon signs appeared in rows. Among these, we went to ‘K’ business, which was being operated as a room salon and host bar in a ‘1, 2 part form’ (room salon in the evening, host bar late at night).
(Photo caption: Entrance to Seoul Samseong-dong host bar at 1 p.m. on the 18th. Four young men who look like hosts are saying goodbye to two women)
내부로 들어서자 문 열린 객실 틈으로 40대 중년 남성들과 업소 아가씨들이 섞여 앉아 술잔을 기울이는 모습이 눈에 들어왔다. 바로 옆방에서는 20대 초반으로 보이는 앳된 남성들이 30~40대 여성들에게 입으로 안주를 먹여 주거나 윗옷을 벗고 춤을 추는 등 낯뜨거운 광경이 펼쳐졌다. 같은 공간에 남녀 접대부들이 섞여 있는 모습이 낯설었다. 이 가게의 1부 영업을 관리한다는 한 실장은 “1, 2부를 확실히 구분지어 영업한다. 업소 아가씨들이 남성 접대부들과 같이 일하는 것을 불편하게 여겨 그만두는 일이 잦기 때문”이라고 귀띔했다.
Upon entering, through the crack of an opened door middle-aged men in their 40s and the business’ young women sitting together and pouring drinks could be seen. In the very next room, baby-faced men who looked like they were in their early 20s feeding snacks to women in their 30s or 40s or taking off their shirts and dancing, and other embarrassing scenes could be observed unfolding. Male and female hosts mixing in the same space was unusual. A director who runs this business’ first part said “We run the two parts very separately. It is because the business’ young women consider it uncomfortable to work with male hosts and so often quit.”
(Map of host bars in Gangnam-3-Gu)
팁은 시간당 3만원 안팎 / Tips around ₩30,000 per hour
이곳에서는 양주 한병에 기본 18만원을 내야 한다. 고급 호스트바에 비해 상대적으로 저렴해 일부 주부들과 회사원 사이에 ‘부담 없이 놀기 좋은 장소’란 입소문이 난 곳이다. 5분 남짓 기다리자 ‘모델’, ‘보이’ 등으로 불리는 ‘박스’(10명 안팎의 호스트들로 꾸려진 팀)가 일렬로 들어왔다. ‘선수’(호스트를 지칭하는 은어)들은 업소에 상주하지 않고 손님이 찾을 경우 다른 곳에서 대기하다가 전화를 받고 오는 일명 ‘보도’ 형태로 운영되고 있었다. 남성 호스트에게 지불되는 팁은 시간당 3만원. 비교적 ‘저렴한’ 가격 때문에 오후 9시 이후에는 주부와 회사원, 새벽에는 여대생부터 유흥업소 종사자들까지 다양한 부류의 여성들이 찾는다고 했다.
Here, one must pay at least ₩180,000 for a bottle of Western alcohol. Compared to top-level host bars, this is relatively cheap so it has gained a reputation among ordinary housewives and office workers as a “good place to have fun without a burden.” After waiting over 5 minutes, a “box” (a team of 10 or so hosts) called “Model”, “Boy”, [Marilyn – I guess these are names of different box -?] and so on entered in a row. “Seonsu” (the designated slang term for hosts [lit. “players”, as on a sports team]) who aren’t stationed at a business but are standing by so that when customers visit they receive a phone call and come, are managed as “bodo.” Male hosts receive a tip of ₩30,000 per hour. Because of the comparatively “cheap” price, housewives and office workers after 9pm, and at dawn, diverse types of women from university students to adult entertainment business professionals said they come here.
선수들 가운데는 고교생 티를 벗지 못한 앳된 얼굴도 보였다. “화끈한 준이에요.”, “끝나게 노는 현우예요.” 이런 투의 자기소개가 이어졌다. 두 명을 ‘초이스’한 뒤 이야기를 나눴다. (source, below)
Among the seonsu, there were babyfaces who haven’t yet shed their high school student look. “I am Wild Joon”, “I am Hyeon-woo who plays hard.” The self-introductions continued in this kind of tone. Two people talked with us after “choice” [Marilyn – choosing ceremony?].
“더 어린 친구는 없나?”
“You don’t have any younger friends?”
누나 ‘민짜’(미성년) 좋아해? 있기야 있지. 아까 두 번째 애도 올해 수능 봤어.”
“Does noona like minjja (underage)? Of course we have it! The second kid just now also took the college entrance exam this year.”
4년째 호스트 생활을 하고 있다는 20대 남성 A씨는 “미성년자는 주로 업소보다 보도에 많다.”면서 “간혹 여자 손님 중에 미성년자도 있다.”고 털어놨다.
Mr. A, a man in his 20s who has been a host for four years, confessed, “There are usually more underage at bodo than at businesses.”
이른바 ‘2차’가 가능한지 물었다. “에이, 알면서…. 누나가 맘에 들어 해서 좋아. 근데 이게 시간당 계산되는 거라서….”
This reporter asked if the so-called “second stage” were possible. “Come on, you already know … I like noona so that’s fine. But it’s an hourly-calculated thing, so…”
(Source)
일부 룸안에서 즉석 성매매까지 / As far as prostitution on the spot in some rooms
한 20대 선수는 눈치를 살피며 말꼬리를 흐렸다. 2차 비용에 대한 이야기인 듯싶어 “50만원 정도면 어때?”라고 물었더니 고개를 끄덕였다. 간혹 룸 안에서 즉석 성매매가 이뤄지는 경우도 있다고 했다.
A seonsu in his twenties trailed off while watching for a reaction. It seemed to be talk about the price of a second stage, so this reporter asked “How about ₩500,000 or so?” and he nodded. He said there are sometimes cases in which on-the-spot prostitution occurs in a room.
그는 이어 “경찰 단속이 뜨면 내가 웨이터라고 말하거나 누나랑 아는 사이라고 하면 돼.”라며 손님으로 가장한 취재진을 안심시켰다.
He then gave comfort to the reporter disguised as a customer, saying, “If the police come in, all I have to do is say I’m a waiter or that noona and I know each other.”
한참을 ‘놀다’ 일어서려는 취재진에게 한 선수가 투정 부리듯 말했다. “누나, 단속은 걱정 안 해도 돼요. 다 방법이 있어요.”
To the reporter who had “played” for a good while and was standing up to leave, a seonsu complained, “Noona, you don’t have to worry about a crackdown. Everything has a solution.”
(Links to be provided as posts go up: Part 1, Part 3, Part 4)
Korean Sexuality: Still Awaiting a Revolution?
(The Beast and the Beauty, 2005. Source)
On a recent episode of Thinking Allowed, a BBC4 radio show and podcast, host Laurie Taylor talked to Kate Fisher and Simon Szreter about their new book Sex Before the Sexual Revolution, an “illuminating exploration of intimate life in England between 1918 and 1963, which involved them speaking frankly and in depth to almost a hundred people about their sex lives in the period”. Fascinating in its own right, my ears immediately pricked up upon hearing the following at 16:10 (source, below right):
Laurie Taylor:
Let’s turn to some things you found out as a result of your, I mean, very sensitively conducted conversations…I mean, Kate, one of the things is about this, this…the notion is that people were utterly ignorant about sex before marriage. Does the research bear this out?
Kate Fisher:
Yes and no. This is a world in which sexual info is increasingly available, but it’s still one in which parents are reluctant to talk to their children, where schools don’t…er…give away information until after 1944, and even still, that’s fairly limited. So people are having to piece things together, listen to jokes, overhear other people…
But what’s particularly striking, is the ways in which women in particular, even when they did come across information, they were careful to not find out too much. They wanted to maintain a sense of ignorance in order to…
Laurie Taylor:
Yes, particularly working-class women though, yes…this idea that they should be innocent…
Kate Fisher:
They should be innocent and indeed they saw innocence as part of an attractive naivety…Their attractiveness was bound up with appearing naive, and innocent, and sort of coy.
Which as you’ve probably already guessed, has striking parallels with the attitudes of Korean women today.
Not that I want to overstate those of course. But I do think it’s no coincidence, and it’s certainly got my intellectual juices flowing. In particular, over whether UK society at the time had its own equivalent to aegyo (애교), and, regardless, how much such notions of female sexuality underscore it (albeit very much in combination with financial dependence on male breadwinners).
Food for thought anyway!^^ Meanwhile, for a glowing review of the book itself, see The Guardian here (I’m sold!), and to listen to the full interview, scroll to 11:35 here, or alternatively you can download the whole podcast here (it’s the February 16 episode).
Update - Naturally, the point that most got my attention in the interview of the authors was also mentioned in the book review:
The book’s three sections – “What was sex?”, “What was love?” and “Exploring sex and love in marriage” – take us through the whole cycle of the interviewees’ awareness of sex, from the rudimentary and often non-existent provision of sex education, through courtship, petting, birth control, marriage and parenthood. The social context is clearly delineated, but even the woeful ignorance of the young about sex – “the profound and beautiful ignorance of sex”, as one respondent calls it – is examined with great subtlety. “For women of all classes, the preservation of innocence and modesty was a complex cultural accomplishment in which many around them had to play their protective role and with which they had to comply. It was an enduring positive element of their self-identity, instilled into them by their parents, especially their mothers.”
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