Korean Gender Reader

Not really related to Korea sorry, but Derek Kim and Les McClaine, two of my favorite cartoonists, do need to sell 8-10,000 physical copies of the first chapter of Tune to keep the excellent web-series going. Just $9.86 on Amazon, or — I’m very happy to report for Korea-based readers — 20, 390 won at What The Book, I’m just about to order a copy for myself and (hopefully) my daughters. See here for the details, and please: don’t click on page 1 of Chapter 1 unless you’ve got a few hours to spare!

Announcements

— Video: Girls’ Generation? Gender, (Dis)Empowerment and K-pop by Dr. Stephen Epstein (Royal Asiatic Society)

— Busan Biennale 2012, September 22 – November 24 (Busan Haps)

Body Image/Health:

— Breast in show: the art of plastic surgeon Han Xiao (Want China Times)

— Queer Corner: Gendered Beauty Standards (Korean Gender Cafe)

— Plastic-Fantastic or Robotronic-Loverholic? (Seoulbeats)

— How Savvy Chinese People Avoid Toxic Food, Goods Produced in China (Asia Society)

— German magazine rethinking ‘no models’ policy (The Korea Herald)

— Objectifying Cyclist Jenny Fletcher (Sociological Images)

— Firms focus more on employees’ health (The Korea Times)

— Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History by Florence Williams (The Guardian)

— The Daegu International Body Painting Festival 2012 in South Korea (The Telegraph)

— Look at Me! I’m on a Diet! The Girls Generation Diet!! (The Unlikely Expat)

— The Mosquito Truck (Ask a Korean!)

Censorship/Protest:

— G-Dragon new MV ‘That beeeeep’ will be censored with lots of annoying beeeeeeeeeeeps (Omona They Didnt)

— Protecting Sources & Risking Lives: The Ethical Dilemmas of Japanese Journalism (Japan Subculture Research Center)

— Constitutional Court of Korea Declares Internet Real-Name Online Identification System Unconstitutional (The Korea Law Blog)

— Military’s moral education has a political agenda (The Hankyoreh)

— Protests, public space in Seoul, and cyberspace – Part 5 (Gusts of Popular Feeling)

— Filming curtailed in ‘suicide forest’ (Visual Anthropology of Japan)

Crime:

— Suspect in Naju’s child abduction-rape case admits to crime (Yonhap)

— Drunk Man Kidnaps, Rapes and Leaves Girl with Internal Injuries (Korea Bang)

— Police request arrest warrant against child rape suspect (The Korea Times)

— Police revive stop and search to help fight violent crimes (The Korea Herald; The Korea Times)

— Need systematic crackdown on child pornography; South Korea is world’s sixth largest distributor of child porn (The Hankyoreh)

— Courts slammed for light sentences on sex offenders (The Korea Times)

— The War on Crime (The Marmot’s Hole)

— Crimes rekindle debate over capital punishment (The Korea Herald; The Korea Times; The Hankyoreh; Korea Real Time)

— SKorean juries give sex offenders harsher punishments (Asian Correspondent)

— Ex-doctor proposes surgical castration (The Korea Herald)

— Government to recruit 1,250 more police, probation officers (The Korea Times)

— Korea’s new war on vice (Korea Law Today)

Dating/Relationships/Marriage:

— Ask the Yangxifu: Should I Wear a Qipao in My Chinese Wedding? (Speaking of China)

— Korean Hugs vs American Hugs (Gyopo Keith)

— Reply to “I’M AN ASIAN WOMAN AND I REFUSE TO EVER DATE AN ASIAN MAN” (AMWW Magazine)

— A Story of Sexism, Chinese Men and Who Should Wash the Dishes (Speaking of China)

— Does Waiting Six Months To Have Sex Improve Relationships? (XX Factor)

— A love letter from the past (The Marmot’s Hole)

— Yangxifu Pride: Pinterest Boards on Chinese Men and Western Women in Love (Speaking of China)

History:

— The Anti-Rising Sun Flag:Are the ghosts of the past still haunting us? (The Marmot’s Hole)

LGBT/Sexuality:

— Tokyo women weigh in on the possibility of participating in porn pictures (The Tokyo Reporter)

— K-dramas and “Pseudo-Homosexuality”: What Gives? (Seoulbeats)

— Gay groups up in arms over sexuality education textbook in Hangzhou (Shanghaiist)

— Reading List- Remembered Branches: Towards a Future of Korean Homosexual Film (The Kimchi Queen)

— K-Drama’s More Literal (And Laudable) Takes On Homosexuality (Seoulbeats)

— Queer Corner: Violence in a Label – 마짜, 때짜, 올 (Korean Gender Cafe)

— More to learn about LGBT travel trends from South Korea (Travel Daily News)

— Gayspeak: 떼박/Orgy (The Kimchi Queen)

— Gender-bendy hijinks from Oohlala Spouses (Dramabeans)

Miscellaneous:

— A Culture of Copying (ZenKimchi)

— In the Victorian Age, astronomy and nudity went hand in hand (io9; NSFW)

— Paper Tigers: What happens to all the Asian-American overachievers when the test-taking ends? (New York Magazine)

— Goodbye Reverend Moon (1920-2012). Let’s consider what happens next. (Korea Law Today)

— Do men and women really (literally) see the world differently? (io9)

Naomi Wolf’s Vagina:

— Ariel Levy on Naomi Wolf’s “Vagina” (Bitch)

— Neuroscientists take aim at Naomi Wolf’s theory of the “conscious vagina” (io9)

— Naomi Wolf: ‘Neural wiring explained vaginal v clitoral orgasms. Not culture. Not Freud’ (The Guardian)

— Naomi Wolf’s book Vagina: self-help marketed as feminism (The Guardian)

— Tunnel of Love (The Economist)

Politics/Economics/Workplaces:

— For ‘losers’, Korean society is unforgiving (The Hankyoreh)

— In Japan, Retirees Go On Working (Bloomberg Business Week)

— How the 5-day workweek changed Korean employment (The Hankyoreh)

— Cancer, Death and Samsung’s Semiconductor Factories (The Three Wise Monkeys)

— Inside Korean Work Culture: Overworked and Underappreciated (The Three Wise Monkeys)

— The Greying Radicals in Korea and How they May Harm Your Korean Business (The Korean Law Blog)

— Female muscle: Now is not a good time to be a man (The Economist)

Pop Culture:

— Unpopular Opinion: Psy Isn’t Doing K-pop Any Favors (Seoulbeats)

— Gangnam Style: After 100 million downloads, maybe I should say something (Korea Law Today)

— There is No Such Thing as ‘Gangnam Style’ (The Three Wise Monkeys)

— What does Gangnam Style mean? (Cute in Korea)

— Why do the opinions of netizens bear so much weight on the K-Pop industry? (Netizen Buzz)

— Korean Culture Through K-pop 102: Will You Marry Me? (Seoulbeats)

— Why It Makes Me Sorry That Hwayoung Is Sorry (Seoulbeats)

— Netizens label YG Entertainment’s Jennie Kim a bullying bitch based on … uh … nothing (Asian Junkie)

— G-Dragon, “One of a Kind”: a 3-and-a-half-minute ego trip (My First Love Story)

— Is K-Pop Sustainable? Tom Coyner by IPG’s Senior Adviser (The Korean Law Blog)

Pregnancy/Abortion/Childbirth/Demographics/Parenting/Education/Multiculturalism:

— For the Love of All That’s Holy: You Don’t Lose Your Identity When You Become a Parent, You Lose Your Minutes (Jezebel)

— South Korea Struggles With Fewer Troops; U.S. Military With Fewer Dollars (Real Clear Politics)

— Dinosaurs and indoor pools – the lighter side of childhood in China (Seeing Red in China)

— Grown Korean adoptees return to birth country to fill in the missing gap (The Korea Times)

— More Or Less: Why, as people get richer, do they have fewer children? (The Economist)

— As education levels rise, fertility drops (Korea Joongang Daily)

— Number of women giving birth over 40 doubles in a decade (The Korea Times)

— Statistics on foreigners in Korea, and the ROK before the CERD (Gusts of Popular Feeling)

— On Feeding (On Becoming a Good Korean (Feminist) Wife)

— Multiracial families and military service (The Korea Times)

— Korean scientists counter creationists on textbook controversy (The Hankyoreh)

(Links are not necessarily endorsements)