(Source)
Pop Culture:
— “Gee,” Female Subjectivity, and the Male Gaze (Occupied Territories)
— Korean Men’s Association Files a Petition to Ban Baek Ji Young’s “Good Boy” for Derogatory Lyrics Toward Men (KoreaBang, Soompi, Asian Junkie; see here for a review of the song itself)
— Korean Movies Get Racier to Fend off Hollywood (The Chosunilbo)
— K-pop Star Finalists Embrace Their Inner Dolls for Elle Girl (Seoulbeats)
— The dark shades of Korean dramas (The Hankyoreh)
— Oppa, your face is blocking Namsan Tower (Angry K-pop Fan)
— Your Company and Fans Know Best: The Babying of Idols (Seoulbeats)
— Why I Write “Strong Female Characters” (io9)
— K-pop’s Archetypes (Seoulbeats)
— Contents Media alleged to pay male escort to keep quiet about relationship with Actress Lee Mi-sook (Korea Joongang Daily)
— Are ‘idol x reader’ fics unique to the K-pop fandom? (Angry K-pop Fan)
— Song Hye Kyo is a fat, disgusting pig and no man wants to have sex with her anymore (Asian Junkie)
— Annotation #1: K-Pop Idols & Construction of Identity (My First Love Story)
Censorship:
— Jang Yoon-jung’s music video banned on terrestrial networks (Korea Joongang Daily)
Dating/Relationships/Marriage:
— K-girls, K-boys… both in the wrong? (Roboseyo)
— Why white people date white people: Exposed! (I’m no Picasso)
— Survey: More women than men regret marriage (Asian Correspondent)
— Old bachelors, bachelorettes seen as ‘flawed, incomplete’ (Korea Times)
LGBT/Sexuality:
— 13th Korea Queer Culture Festival Begins in Seoul (KQCF)
— Sex work, sex workers, and the Korean sex industry on the Charlie Spice Show (Research Project Korea; see here for his second appearance)
— YAM Magazine LGBT Blogathon, June 11-17 (YAM Magazine)
— Korea begins debating gay marriage (Asian Correspondent)
— The Most Liberal Korean-Korean Man I Know Does Not Believe in Gay Rights (Korean Bodega)
— ‘Sponsors’ pay university students for sex (The Korea Times)
— 60% of Men Over 40 Suffer Sexual Dysfunctions (The Chosun Ilbo)
— Beat Takeshi criticized for comparing gay marriage to bestiality, says he was misunderstood (Asian Junkie)
— Shinhwa To Do Another Nude Photoshoot? (Omona)
History:
— Korea In Depth: New Perspectives: Women and the Chosǒn Dynasty with Dr. Michael Pettid (The Korea Society)
Pregnancy/Childbirth/Parenting:
— Bullied over being mixed race, Korean teen turns to arson (Asian Correspondent)
— Korea, US agree on school bullying study (The Korea Times)
— Demography: A new science of population (The Economist)
Economics/Politics:
— Heed France’s integration success (The Hankyoreh)
— Lady Business: How Do You Navigate Boys Club Culture? (Bitch Magazine)
The English Spectrum Series at Gusts of Popular Feeling:
— Part 26: ‘Foreign instructor’ takes third place
— Part 27: Art From Outsider’s Point of View
Multiculturalism:
— A little bit of xenophobia keeps the foreigners well-behaved (The Marmot’s Hole)
— Sick, Corrupt, Racist, Paranoid, Xenophobic? – The Chinese Government Speaks (The Marmot’s Hole)
— Probably NSFW Taiwanese take on xenophobic Chinese rant (Gusts of Popular Feeling)
— Anti-racism law (The Korea Times)
Crime:
— South Korea to chemically castrate rapist (Korea Law Today; Korea Realtime; The Marmot’s Hole; The Korea Herald; Reuters; CNN)
— Get ‘em trashed and then crashed (The Marmot’s Hole)
Misc:
— To Korean men, every inch counts (Korea Joongang Daily)
— Gendered assumptions in daily life (The F-word Blog)
— Plastic surgery: achieving ‘natural’ via unnatural means? (Angry K-pop Fan)
— Help Fund Tropes vs Women in Video Games (Feminist Frequency)
— One size fits small for ajumma shoppers (Korea Joongang Daily)
— Chinese business looking for a few good Jews (Foreign Policy)
— Ink Bomb International Tattoo Convention 2012 (Chincha?!; also, see “The Shogun of Osaka” at the Economist)
— What We Look Like: A Comic About Women in Media (Truthout)
— Italian fashion brand redefines “models” (Work That Matters)
Shout-outs:
— Send me to the Sex Worker Freedom Festival! (Research Project Korea)
(Links are not necessarily endorsements)
The Grand Narrative 
Re: Jang Yoon-jung’s music video banned on terrestrial networks – how sad that they ban a video simply because it contains a 굿. These rituals still happen in Korean, they’re a part of Korea, and not something to be ashamed of. It saddens me sometimes when I see something like this – the worship of everything “modern” annd rich and expensive, and the western-lookingyer-to-Korean-eyes the better.
I went to 북촌 한옥 마을 yesterday expecting to see a load of old houses still beeing lived in. I was somewhat disappointed when I found that the majority seemed to really new, and just built to reflect the traditional style. It was also clearly a very affluent area judging by the local shops, the cars parked by the houses and so on.
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Truth be told, I barely even skim most of the links I put up. So, deciding to check out the link because of your comment, I expected it to say that the MV (which I also haven’t watched) was banned because it was deemed to be too disturbing to children and so on, whereas you were arguing that it not being “modern” enough was the real reason. After everything I’ve read about Korean censorship though, I should have known better! :O
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At the risk of stating the obvious, France has serious problems relating to integrating immigrant and ethnic minority communities, so it’s strange to see the Hankyoreh hailing “France’s integration success”.
At least the Hankyoreh is willing to think of Fleur Pellerin as a French person, unlike certain other newspapers that apparently used her Korean birth name in their headlines. The Donga Ilbo printed a cartoon of her wearing hanbok and holding a tricoleur flag, I suppose because you wouldn’t know she was French otherwise.
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“— Korea begins debating gay marriage (Asian Correspondent)”
Wonder what the most favored netizen comments on this say. Did you read it? I’m currently on a comp without Korean symbols so can’t even try my poor Korean hand at reading them. Generally get the impression that most netizens are less provoked by religious/moral beliefs and more skeptical of giving too many ‘advantages’ (in actuality just common human rights) to minorities. I read the Korea Bang link you had the other day with lots of pro-gay or at least very anti-homophobic dude comments on it- sometimes I get the impression that most young people have no issues with homosexuality, other times I get the impression that it’s still taboo.
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Sorry for taking so long to reply, and I’m afraid I never really have the time to look at netizen comments to anything I translate or link to. As for how homophobic (or not) young Koreans are, I’d really like to know myself too, but unfortunately asking my students anything like that would lead to nothing but trouble at my university. Not because it’s more conservative than average or anything like that, although it is a Christian university, but more because we can’t stray much from our bland curriculum.
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