Archive for the ‘ Commercialism ’ Category
We promised to bring you more examples of bad English in Korea. You’ll soon see why Koreans are bringing over anybody with an unspecified degree to teach English. “Hick the aroma of fresh coffee go up beteween city,” says the sign on the outdoor patio of a coffee shop in my neighbourhood. There is not a single [ READ MORE ]
English has been adopted and senselessly mutated on countless wonderful occasions in Korean marketing, on t-shirts, and in K-Pop. In Korea, English brings a “coolness” factor apparently not possible with, say, Swahili or Hindu. It is our goal to present you with never-ending examples of this phenomenon. So we’ll start with something close to our home. The [ READ MORE ]
The most visible World Cup presence leading up to the event had been in the commercial realm. While that has changed to some extent on game days, it generally remains the case even after Korea’s first successful match was played over the weekend. Korea is a very commercial society, perhaps even more so than my home [ READ MORE ]
Today at work I returned to my desk to find five beautiful ladies beckoning from the cover of a pizza box (left-overs from a pizza party in someone’s class, no doubt). The ladies in question were from the Korean pop group “Cara”. At this point you may justifiably ask yourself “why the hell are they on [ READ MORE ]
Korean businesses tend to come and go. You’ll be walking down the street one week and a place is a clothes shop. The next time you walk by the place will have been gutted, seemingly overnight. In one more week a new shop will have suddenly appeared. And there’s a good chance it all happened [ READ MORE ]
Five-eighteen (5/18) — it is a date of immense significance in Korea. You see, on May 18th, 1980 the Gwangju Democratization Movement began. It was a civilian uprising in Gwangju against martial law, and a flagship moment in the history of South Korean democracy. But it was also a brutal period of government suppression of popular will. At [ READ MORE ]
I had been meaning to get my hands on some water from the De-Militarized Zone for awhile. I figured I’ve never really quenched my thirst yet in this life if I haven’t had the purist water only a heavily fortified, landmine-riddled strip of land separating two nations still at war can provide. Don’t fear for me [ READ MORE ]