Korean Sociological Image #60: “Beautiful” Female Athletes
Noticed playing on the televisions on the KTX train, on my trip to Seoul on Wednesday.
Granted, technically it’s only one female athlete being described as a “beaut(iful) bird” (미녀새) here. And arguably that – or rather, beautiful soaring bird – is indeed an apt metaphor for any pole vaulter. Let alone Yelena Isinbayeva, “widely considered the greatest female pole-vaulter of all time”.
But still, can you imagine it actually being applied to a male pole vaulter? Or a male athlete of any sport ever, first and foremost, being described as “handsome”?
Definitely a gender binary to keep an eye on as the Daegu 2011 IAAF World Championships approach!
Update 1: Here’s a similar recent example from the US Yahoo! Sports website.
Update 2: @TheSocyCinema and @landrist discuss another example from Adidas.
(For all posts in the Korean Sociological Image series, see here)
Korean Gender Reader
(Sources: left, right)
On the left, a virile healthy reminder that men are also increasingly being objectified by the Korean media these days (via Kiss My Kimchi). On the right, that SM Entertainment were also clearly on drugs when they made those teaser images for Super Junior’s latest album…
Meanwhile, a minimalist Korean Gender Reader this time, which will have to be the norm from now on (I’m very busy this summer!). But on the plus side, they’ll also be much more frequent and up-to-date:
1) South Korea becomes the first Asian country to chemically castrate sex offenders
2) More Korean women are marrying younger men
3) Can bikini-clad foreign women at Cheonggyecheon be punished? Should they?
Update: See On Becoming a Good Korean (Feminist) Wife also
4) Do Asian women with white men suck?
Christine Han discusses reactions to her earlier post (see #5 here)
5) Korean HRC issues guidelines on sports and human rights
In reaction to scandals that emerged in 2008 regarding sexual assaults of student-athletes and professional athletes by their coaches
6) Dear K-pop: down with Playboy bunny ears! (See #1 here and #5 here also)
7) 3 Jeju teenagers arrested for prostitution
8) China’s most populous province launches a public criticism of the one-child policy
9) 2011: The Year of the Chinese Woman?
10) Piggy Dolls “piggy” no more? (See #10 here for some background)
(Source)
FINALLY, a Way to Study Korean Through Dramas!
(Source)
If you’re a Western student of Korean, then probably you’ve experienced the same dilemma I have: you’d like to watch dramas to improve your listening ability and get a handle on everyday language, but are put off by their excessive melodrama, cliches, and often poor quality. Which is not to say that all of them are bad of course, but when you do find one you like, then you can struggle in vain to find Korean subtitles to them. For Korean torrent sites naturally don’t bother to provide them, and Koreans’ rampant illegal downloading means that it’s extremely difficult to find DVDs of Korean dramas (if they even exist).
So, either you have to watch dramas with distracting English subtitles, or struggle to understand the stories with none at all. If only there were some alternate way to study the dialogue in advance, or read it as you go along. Sure, Dramabeans’ detailed synopses of each episode of most dramas are very helpful for the gist, but I think I speak for most when I say we’re really after something more akin to transcripts…
Enter “드라마사진만화”, or “드라마영상만화”: a little like manhwa books, but with photo stills from the drama, rather than hand-drawn pictures. Please see Shanna’s post about them at Hangkukdrama and Korean here for more information, and which so impressed me that I immediately ordered some for Secret Garden. And you can just imagine how I felt when I read that she’s had some for over 3 years, when this is the first I’ve ever heard of them!
Does anybody else already used them? What did you think?
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