Skip to main content

Love, Hate, and Cyberpunk

This update includes a new Netflix documentary about the Nth Room, an award-nominated novel about a lesser-known side of Seoul life, colorful and striking Korean artists, and other things I've enjoyed the past few months. Thanks for taking a look!

A temple dressed with lanterns in celebration of Buddha's birthday. 
Doing

I received differing reactions to the collection of abandoned coffee cups I introduced last blog post. Some people declared the collection, "pretty weird," while others grinned and asked when my exhibition would open. Others didn't say anything at all but sent me photos of abandoned coffee cups to show their quiet tolerance for my quirky habit. Whatever others think I have no plans to put aside my hobby, and in fact, I expanded my photo collection to the word, "premium," to better understand the word's use in Korean advertising. Perhaps these collections will turn into more than pet projects or a quiet appreciation of overlooked details, but for now I'm happy to just notice and share.

Trip to Sokcho

Some of my friends planned a trip to Sokcho in celebration of two birthdays. Sokcho lies on the eastern side of the peninsula, right next to the ocean, and I was glad to get away from the city for a day. We listened to our "guilty pleasure" songs on the ride up (I chose Linkin Park) and sang worship songs on the way back to keep ourselves in balance. Our trip included a visit to a lovely café, plenty of seaside photos and, yes Joe Jonas, cake by the ocean.


Some Video Things

NOVAsia uploaded a podcast I arranged last November to talk about art in Korea. I was really happy for the excuse to reach out to Diana, who runs multiple projects about Korea's art scene (including a podcast), and Mersie, a singer-songwriter and artist.

My friend invited me to her YouTube channel, Soeun in Seoul, where we discussed Korean words with no English equivalents. She's also created videos that break down Korea's fashion industry and describe the meaning of "third-culture kid."

Watching
Cyber Hell
This new documentary from Netflix pieces together interviews from reporters and policemen about the Nth Room case. The "Nth Room" describe a series of online chat rooms that sold illicit sexual content. Two individuals nicknamed "doctor" and "god god" led the chatrooms and extracted the photos by manipulating and threatening women. The documentary details the winding chase that eventually led to their captures and jail sentences.

This documentary is another attempt to bring awareness of digital sexual violence to the public, which initially gave a lukewarm response to the case when it broke in 2019. This kind of crime exists worldwide, and will only increase as the digital realm becomes more sophisticated. But more than awareness is necessary. The world has to cultivate societies that uplift women, rather than regard them as commodities, so we can stop this abuse.

Sweet Busking by the River
I went to see a busking event for the English radio station, TBS eFM in April. The wind was so strong none of my videos came out with clear sound, so I included an official video instead.
The live event featured performances by two contestants from the competition show, Superband, as well as performances from the station's radio hosts.

Listening
Love, Hate and Cyberpunk
LOVE me - BE'O - BE'O is a fairly new rapper who reached success in 2021 through the hip-hop show, Show Me the Money, especially with his song, Counting Star. His newest track is a sweet, energetic plea to be loved, and is the perfect song to perform in front of the mirror (not that I would know). As a fairly young rapper, BE'O has lots of time to explore his sound and I'm excited to see what he will come up with next.

난 너 없이 (I hate you) - WOODZ - WOODZ originally debuted with a Chinese-Korean boy band called UNIQ, and after the group disbanded in 2017 he went on to make excellent solo bops. This particular song and its music video give off exciting 2000s vibes, similar to songs I jammed out to in middle school.
BTBT - BI (Feat. DeVita) - This otherworldly-sounding song is complimented by it's immersive music video. The actors wear intricate and immaculate outfits as they roam a ruined, futuristic world, looking like a live-action Final Fantasy game. It's a joy to watch cars zoom through the air and neon lights gleam from tall buildings as the artists' voices entice listeners.

Reading
Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park, Trans. by Anton Hur - This book was longlisted for the International Booker Prize, an award for novels translated to English and published in the UK or Ireland. Han Kang and translator Deborah Smith won the award in 2016 for The Vegetarian. 

Love in the Big City depicts the life of a gay man living in Seoul, South Korea. The novel's domestic popularity seems surprising given Korea's status as conservative and unfriendly toward the LGBTQI+ community. The government still hasn't passed an anti-discrimination law to protect sexual or racial minorities, and the new presidency threatens to do away with the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. In such an environment, a book with a gay protagonist seems unlikely to reach Korea's bestseller list, yet it scored big among both Korean and non-Korean audiences.

To learn more about the novel, you can watch this interview with Sang Young Park on Korea Society's YouTube channel.

No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood - This collection of thoughts reads like a brain entering its third hour scrolling Instagram, or one deeply immersed in angry Twitter threads, or perhaps scanning a previously apolitical friend's fiery Facebook posts. The internet, or "portal," is where everything happens all the time, a place of constant reinvention. The book feels surreal when it mentions memes I came across on trips through the "portal" but never shared with a real living human. Apparently we were all laughing and cringing at the same things this entire time. 

The tone changes after the author's niece is born. The baby has a rare disease that makes her brain swell and swell and swell, seeming to reflect the human brain's desire to endlessly consume information.

Below, some lines I liked from the novel.

"It was a mistake to believe that other people were not living as deeply as you were. Besides, you were not even living that deeply."

"It (the brain) had also once been the place where you sounded like yourself. Gradually it had become the place where we sounded like each other, through some erosion of wind or water on a self not nearly as firm as stone."

Writing
Asia Society Korea Center Blog Posts
I interned with Asia Society Korea Center from February to mid-May this year. Though the internship lasted only 3 months I got to write for the Center's blog about Korea-related topics. I included three articles below for anyone interested!

The Road to a Plastic-Free Society: Korea's Fight Against Plastic Waste

Korea's Election Street Scene: A Feast for the Senses

Korea's DMZ Offers a Safe Haven for Diverse Wildlife, For Now

Other Writing

Seeing
Talented artists
해성 (Haeseong) - When I first saw Haeseong's work on Angle Magazine I literally gasped. He combines modern youth culture with Korean folklore, such as the mischievous Dokkgaebi, to make intricate, affective images that bring to life an alternate universe.

리오지 (riojee) - I saw riojee at an art convention last year and love his childlike, whimsical style.

Gwangsoo Park - Pretty much everything this artist creates makes my jaw drop. Absolutely soul-wrenching pieces. Many feature biblical characters or have religious overtones, including the praying piece below and one featuring the New Testament's Doubting Thomas that I find personally affecting.

Gwangsoo also worked with the band, Hyukoh, on visuals for a 2017 album. You can see the collaboration in Hyukoh's music video for Tomboy below.

 

Photos (click to enlarge)

Tried raw fish for the first time in Sokcho!

Coffee in a café that doesn't use single-use plastics, and a new friend from Australia!




On a video call with the bestest girl.

I went to see live painting by the street artists, Royyaldog and Jay Flow, at NVM. The experience proved pretty funny because I was the only girl and I dressed in preppy work clothes, which contrasted sharply with everyone's street wear, tattoos, and alcoholic beverages.😳

A knitting café filled with knitted décor and loads of yarn for sale. Yup, all those are made with yarn!


끝까지 함께 해 주셔서 고맙습니다. 다음에 또 만나요!

(Thanks for reading to the end. Let's meet again next time!)



Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 7, 2022 at 4:30 AM

    A wide variety of info in this post! You’ve had a mind-expanding month.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

April 2020 "수고했어 오늘도 (You did well today)"

Somewhere in Seoul 지금 힘들지? 수고했어 오늘도. (soo-go-hay-so oh-neul-do. "These days it's hard, right? You did well today".)  Soo-go-hay-so oh-neul-do (Literally, "You made an effort today as well.") is a commonly used phrase between friends to reassure one another that each did all they could for the day, just like every other day. The word, 수고했어 (soo-go-hay-so), implies not only that one did a good job but that they expended much effort and energy to complete that job. As such the receiver feels recognized and reassured that their work endeavors were not in vain. This phrase also serves as an automatic greeting between office workers after a long day, and customers give a variation of the phrase to employees at the end of an interaction (soo-go-ha-say-yo "Keep making an effort"). It's kind of like saying "Have a nice day." An artist created a cute song around the idea of 수고했어 오늘도, which I listened to after excellently failing the Korean langua...
2 comments
Read more

Nov/Dec 2019—Ddong and Slang

What I'm Up to *Sung to the tune of 12 Days of Christmas* ♪ In the month of December my studies asked of me~ 5+ boxes to pack 4 AM bedtime 3 long papers 2 demanding finals and a Con~fucian presentation~~~♪ I had a pretty packed last couple weeks at school, but complaining about that isn't really what I want this blog to be about. I'll just say it took about 1 1/2 weeks after coming back to the US to recover from the not-so-healthy way I treated myself during finals week and from the jetlag. Finally my headache's gone, my neck isn't sore, and I don't wake up at 2 AM hungry for a bowl of cereal anymore. I've also been able to do the things I haven't in 16 months, like bother my cat (with looove ), bake, drink proper black coffee, and receive some much needed mommy hugs. Now that I'm feeling healthy again and the busy holidays are over I'm settling in for the next 45-ish days until I return to Korea. When my family came to meet me at th...
7 comments
Read more

Oct-Dec 2020 "Comfort Me by Being Comforted"

What I'm Up To Gave myself a blogging break this past semester because these posts take more than a day to complete, and I wasn't interested in adding undue stress. I also had to spend time writing for NOVAsia , my grad school's magazine. This semester I published 2 articles, one about the relationship between K-pop and the Black Lives Matter movement , and one about Korea's "slow" consumption . I also participated in 2 podcasts covering  the US presidential election  and discussing Navajo culture with an exchange student from the Navajo nation . (I'm a novice so be kind in your criticisms, please.) I have another article about COVID-inspired street art that's currently going through its first round of editing, and I'll add a link🔗 once it's complete. 😄 If you're interested, I do hope you'll take a look! (Link now added!) Let's see, what else?  One of the artists that inspired my article goes by the alias, Mr. Tongue. After notic...
2 comments
Read more

Itaewon-"You have set my feet in a broad place."

Titles from articles that emerged after the October 29th crowd crush disaster. (links at bottom of page) Sometime during the pandemic, I found myself wishing to enter a "broad place," like the broad places mentioned in the Bible: "You have set my feet in a broad place; You provide a broad path for my feet, so that my ankles do not give way; He induced you away from the mouth of distress, And instead of it, a broad place with no constraint." I took a photo of the park on top of a hill, cut out the buildings below, and wrote, "If you angle the camera just right you can almost believe it's not the middle of the city." I told a friend I wanted to visit a broad place once, and he took me to a cafe in Bukhansan. Windows covered the walls from top to bottom to show the green mountain outside. I could easily appreciate the trees, and when we walked the path outside the air smelled like rain.  YONHAP/Reuters When I left my school's dorm, I first lived in a ...
3 comments
Read more

January 2020 "In the Absence"

General Update I've been in Missouri the entire month of January, but that doesn't mean I have nothing Korean-related to write about! On the contrary I've had loads of time to finish some assigned readings I was too busy for during the semester, study language, watch dramas and music videos, and overall keep up with Korea happenings. I've also had time for some silly things , like lip-syncing to Korean songs. It may not sound like a worthwhile activity but it helps with language learning and pretending to rap is just too darn fun.  😂 I love recreating artists' facial expressions as I try to keep up with the lyrics, but I rarely indulged in lip-syncing while living in a dorm because I was afraid my roommate would walk in unexpectantly and recognize me for the embarrassment I a m. 😳 But now that I'm home and there's usually no one but the cat to judge me, I embrace the opportunity to look a fool. The song Miroh by Stray Kids (link) is the song I'm...
2 comments
Read more

Even in Korea—/Watching the cherry blossoms bloom—/I long for Korea

K-dramaland Nostalgia With (a cardboard cutout of) the male lead of Boys Over Flowers in 2016. Even in Korea— Watching the cherry blossoms bloom— I long for Korea.*   I've lived in Korea almost 4 years, yet I often find myself wishing I lived in Korea. This being the Korea I envisioned 8 years ago when I was first introduced to the country's pop culture. My then steady diet of K-drama, K-pop, and variety shows, the most accessible entertainment options for overseas audiences, shaped my vision of Korea into a fun, romantic, and sexy country. "Korea feels like Hogwarts, a fantasy land," I'd told my friends. I knew the country was much more than that in principal, but I couldn't remove the emerald glasses I'd donned. Sometimes me and other K-culture fans would whisper about the 'dark side of Korea.' "The school system is so intense! Did you know they all wake up at 5 and sleep at midnight?" "K-pop stars are hardly allowed to eat! And th...
Post a Comment
Read more

June/July 2020–Pansori and Korean Novels

How I'm Doing Annyeonghaseyo! Is it raining where you are? Korea's experiencing its monsoon season at the moment and I'm growing gills. My hair's unmanageable, I sweat just by walking outside, and I keep getting alerts about rising waters and even a landslide. Hope nothing gets as bad as what happened to the Kim family's home in Parasite... Even though humidity reaches 90% saturation and every day experiences heavy rainfall there are still lots of people out and about. Nearly every store sets their umbrellas out front so no one will be caught without and buildings set out stations with umbrella-shaped plastic bags so water doesn't leak all over the floors. Thanks to these conveniences the rainy season doesn't feel very inconvenient, just physically uncomfortable. During these days it's best just to enjoy the rain from indoors with a cup of coffee. Kinda what monsoon season feels like Quick update on June: papers papers papers Glad we got tha...
Post a Comment
Read more

"the struggle that we wage"

"Allegory" by Philip Guston Doing "We're born with infinite possibilities, only to give up on one after another. To choose one thing means to give up another. That's inevitable. But what can you do? That's what it is to live.” -Hayao Miyazaki, The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness I once wrote that the future only materializes once you hack away the foliage and look at the path you made, but I didn't realize hacking would take so long. I changed countries to pursue a new route 6 months ago, but this route didn't materialize, and I find myself in the same situation I tried to escape. " Your life is full of possibilities! " That promise from childhood looms over me once again. " So many possibilities! So many chances to make the wrong decision!" The fear of choosing incorrectly keeps me frantically swinging from one open door to another, and I never close or enter any. If only someone else would reach through and pull me to the other sid...
2 comments
Read more

May 2020 "To See with Eyes Unclouded by Hate"

To See with Eyes Unclouded by Hate This quote comes from the Studio Ghibli film, Princess Mononoke. Lots of viewers remember these words because they matter, and they matter because they speak to every situation. Why are you in Korea? To see with eyes unclouded by hate. Why are you listening to music you don't even understand? To see with eyes unclouded by hate. Why are you marching in the gay pride parade when you're not gay? To see with eyes unclouded by hate. Why are you participating in racial protests when you're white? To see with eyes unclouded by hate. I find I hate less when I'm sharing the same space and looking at the same things. This is why I came to Korea. I knew almost nothing about the peninsula until college, but then I began listening to Korean music, watching Korean shows, and eating Korean food. Meanwhile I never listened to black music, never watched films with a majority of black actors, and rarely shared meals with black people. This is how I le...
Post a Comment
Read more

February 2020 "The dog doesn't know: why you're sad today. But the dog knows: that you are sad."

How I'm Doing I think some higher power might be trying to discourage me from being in Korea. 10 days before my scheduled flight my dermatologist decided she needed to test one of moles to see if anything serious was up, then the day before I left she wanted to get the whole thing removed. So, yeah, that's how I ended up getting a minor surgery the day before a 13 hour flight. Not only did I have this health concern to think about but due to the growing corona virus threat Yonsei decided to postpone the beginning of classes 2 weeks, and they notified us that dorms would house quarantined students from Asian countries. This presented a problem since I was due to move into the dorms, so I frantically began searching for a new place to call home. I'd already bought a flight ticket for a couple days before I reached the 60 day limit my scholarship allows me to stay in another country, so even if I had no where to return to I was still required to return . The school la...
Post a Comment
Read more