Korean Gender Reader
Via Hello Korea!, I’ve just learned of Donga TV’s Single Mom Story above, a series that looks at successful single mothers in Korea. Unfortunately, you’ll need to be fluent in Korean to watch it, but just that the series exists at all is very welcome news, especially considering the stereotypes they have to confront on a daily basis (and which in turn have very real effects on social welfare policy).
Meanwhile, I’m much busier than expected with translations this week sorry (see here, here, here, and here if you’d like a preview!), and on top of that I’m preparing to start teaching again from next week too. But as you can see, the stories still just keep coming!
• Not Made Up: Tourists Boost Cosmetics Industry (Korea Real Time)
• White Person + Asian Person = $? (New York, Pew Research Center, MSNBC; hat tip to Robert Koehler)
• Vietnam to ban marriage with Korean men aged 50 years old or over (Korea Times; hat tip to Bobby McGill)
• Korea only second in the world in plastic surgery operations per capita? (Toronto Sun)
• Korean plastic surgeons charge foreign patients almost double that of Koreans (The Korea Herald)
• The great gender divide: lunch time edition (I’m no Picasso)
• Why half-Black, half-Korean Michelle Lee will not win K-Pop Star (Allkpop, SNSD Free for all, Omona!)
• Office worker arrested for producing drug for sex crimes (Korea Times; hat tip to nayaCasey)
• The Korean entertainment business: a statistical analysis of what happens after stars find trouble (Han Cinema)
• Women and young people still underrepresented in National Assembly (The Hankyoreh)
• China — “A wife has become a luxury good” (Global Times; hat tip to @MaraHvistendahl)
• Female students Occupy Male Toilets in Guangzhou (Shanghaiist, Baidu Beat; hat tip to David Willis)
• Border town brothels openly cohabit with military – “a shock to most Korean women, but no secret to their men” (Korea Times; hat tip to @tomcoyner)
• Global Gender Imbalance Poses Critical Problems for Women (Inter Press Service)
• The Hunt for Mr. Swirl – documentary on capture of pedophile that led to changes in Korea’s E-2 visa regulations (Gusts of Popular Feeling)
• Rent a Husband (Korea Times)
• “Be White” (Groove Magazine)
• Education ministry threatening to limit students‘ hair freedom (The Hankyoreh)
• Filipinos: Nannies, maybe; native speakers, no. (Gusts of Popular Feeling, The Dong-a Ilbo)
• Plastic Surgery in the ROK: An Army of Clones (Expat Hell)
• Kdramas, Rape Culture, & Complicity (Idle Revelry)
• Asians Are Stealing Our Boyfriends On This American Life (Racialious; via My First Love Story)
• Japanese rightists angry about Korean men stealin’ their women (The Marmot’s Hole)
• The Bodyguard Drama: When Women Protect Men (Seoulbeats)
(Links are not necessarily endorsements)
Korean Gender Reader
This being the week of romance, allow me to repost this 2005 Mis en scène commercial featuring Ha Ji-won (하지원) and Jo In-sung (조인성), still the sexiest Korean commercial ever.
Apologies for the poor quality, but unfortunately this copy of mine appears to be the only one available. I have found (via A Koala’s Playground) a good copy of the 15-second version though, but, alas, you really need more of a build-up to fully appreciate Ha Ji-won’s smouldering stares!^^
• V-Men Auditions in Busan, Sunday the 19th (Busan Haps)
• Marriage and tears in Joseon Korea (The Marmot’s Hole)
• All Camp in Korea (Bathhouse Ballads)
• While Brazil Telenovelas Shrink Families, Jdramas Seek to Expand Them? (YAM)
• Does Confucianism have a place in modern Korea? (The Korea Herald; hat tip to Colette Balmain)
• The Korean Look Travels Well in China (The Three Wise Monkeys)
• Brian’s “Let This Die” MV: Romanticizing Violence In Korean Media (Musical Dialect)
• Cesarean Nation: The cautionary tale of how China came to have the world’s highest C-section rate (Slate)
• Brokered marriages hurt husbands, too (Korea Joongang Daily)
• The Baby Owner’s Manual: Operating Instructions, Trouble-Shooting Tips, and Advice on First-Year Maintenance (Geek in Heels)
• Itaewon in 1984: A paradise for foreign gypsies that lead Korean women astray (Gusts of Popular Feeling)
• Putting the fun into feminism (The Sydney Morning Herald; via: Blog in a Tea Cup)
• DONA-International Workshops for Birth and Postpartum Doulas (10Magazine)
• K-Pop and Consumer Nationalism (Seoulbeats)
• Middle school students to spend more time on physical education (The Hankyoreh)
• How young is too young to model? (Work That Matters)
(Links are not necessarily endorsements)
Korean Gender Reader
(Apocalypse Tomorrow Pin-up Girl Calendar, via io9)
• Classic Venus nudes altered for today’s beauty standards (Work That Matters; Geek in Heels; Visual News)
• BREAKING NEWS: Black Woman Featured Prominently in K-Pop Video (Mixtapes and Liner Notes)
• What is a Dried Fish Lady (건어물녀)? (Ethnoscopes: Tracks of an Anthropologist)
• Artificial hymens banned from online sale in China (Shanghaiist)
• Let’s Talk About Sex…With Seniors (Inconseoulable)
• Life in Plastic, It’s Fantastic! (Caviar C:reme)
• Show Beautifies Plastic Surgery (Korea Times)
• Kids’ drawings of Mommy and Daddy Getting Married (Previouslyafter)
• Divorced women prefer unmarried men (Korea Times)
• Male Circumcision and Quality of Sex Life, For Both Sexes (Homo Consumericus)
• Hong Kong full page ad against pregnant mainland women (China Hush)
• N. Korean women popular as brides (The Marmot’s Hole)
• Seoul City to Ban Draconian Appearance Rules at School (The Chousnilbo)
• The Female Grotesque: South Korean poet Kim Hyesoon on subverting expectations, her use of grotesque language, and the state of feminism in Korea (Guernica; hat tip to Tin Alvarez)
• The new economics of tying the knot (Korea Times; hat tip to Chris Backe)
• Talking through bigotry (Gord Sellar)
• China’s surrogate mothers see business boom in year of the dragon (The Guardian)
• Korean HR commission rules against women-only library (Asian Correspondent)
• 1 in 10 teenagers have sexual experience (The Chosunilbo)
• Teenagers Banned from Multi-Purpose Private Rooms (The Chousnilbo)
• “Superstar K3” Chris Golightly Calls Sexual Abuse Allegation “Lying Trash” (Soompi; Allkpop; Korea Joongang Daily)
• Lee Hyori Furious with MBC for False Stories (Allkpop)
• MBC Responds (Omona)
• Announcement: Feb. 15th presentation on “The Triumphs and Tribulations of Being Married to a Korean” (Seoul International Women’s Association)
(Links are not necessarily endorsements)
Korean Gender Reader
(Source)
Sorry for the slow posting everyone: alas, I’m so busy with all my offline projects these days that my planned posting schedule for 2012 is already proving unsustainable. But in the meantime, the news stories just keep coming!
• T-ara members sleep for 2 hours a day (Frank Kogan; see Seoulbeats also)
• Convicted rapist successfully uses the ‘crooked dick’ defense (The Marmot’s Hole; update)
• Korea divorce checklist for negotiation of a marital separation agreement in Korea (The Korea Law Blog)
• Parents tremble at ‘pleasure parties’ thrown by foreign instructors (Gusts of Popular Feeling)
• Travel in Korea still lacks women’s bathrooms (Travelwire Asia)
• 쓰레기 같은 학생, or, Why you might need pepperspray (Gord Sellar)
• Hair freedom for Seoul students (Hankyoreh)
• Internet hot over ‘bikini protest’ (Korea Times) vs. Gong Ji-young (“The Crucible”) Bikinis, Breasts and Weasels (Korean Modern Literature in Translation)
• Fat tax elicits mixed reactions from S. Korean public (Xinhuanet)
• Survey finds lots of sexual harassment at South Korean workplaces (Asian Correspondent)
• Korean women and western/white men: a complicated and troubled relationship (The Unlikely Expat)
• Women leading Korea (The Peninsula) vs. Lone Star and the women of Korea (The Wall Street Journal: Business Asia)
• Jeju Island, known for wind, women, and water…now has more men than women (The Wall Street Journal: Korea Realtime)
• My final post on Asian/white interracial relationships (Shanghai Shiok!)
• Brides-to-be being ripped off ahead of their big day (Hankyoreh)
• “[Is] dating a 28 year-old guy in Korea like dating a 15 year-old in the US?” Deconstructing inane and offensive reader questions (I’m No Picasso)
• An update to the above story – the question wasn’t as bad as it first looked!
• Ministry strives for women’s rights (The Korea Herald)
• South Korea’s racism debate – What debate? (Gord Sellar)
• Headline of the week: “Hard competition coming for erectile dysfunction remedies” (Hankyoreh)
• Entertainment agency representatives voice opinions on idol dating, marriages, and age-limits on usefulness (Allkpop)
• More elderly people sue their children for support (The Chosunilbo)
(Links are not necessarily endorsements)
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