Archive for the ‘ Gender issues ’ Category
You may have noticed last week that the Olympic gold medal winning figure skater Kim Yu Na had ended her successful partnership with Canadian coach Brian Orser. The sudden and unexpected news wasn’t top billing in Korean media, until Kim and Orser decided to air their differences in public. Revelations about the coach walking away to [ READ MORE ]
In Korea many women think they can lose their virginity to a tampon. All images of having sex with a tampon aside, this essentially means they believe they will break their hymen if they use them, therefore marking themselves “deflowered”. This isn’t a completely accurate definition of virginity itself. That said, the tampon misconception is another [ READ MORE ]
In honour of the dick stick that pleasured us all upon its presentation by Andrew the other day, I bring you more cock in Korea. Here’s a restaurant in downtown Gwangju, famously known among foreigners for its name – Cock. As you might have guessed, they serve chicken. Foreigners get photos taken with the sign outside on [ READ MORE ]
It was approaching 11pm at a popular galbi restaurant near our neighbourhood in Gwangju. The once-busy establishment was now long deserted, save for the table of six foreigners and two Koreans. Most of the staff had left once our Kimchi jigae was laid out on our table. Only the owner was still present. A friend and [ READ MORE ]
Porn cards are so prominent and outrageous, that they should never become just part of the background in Korea. This is definitely a risk though. The longer you’re here, the more you take a small picture of a woman demeaning herself, strewn about the street for prostitution purposes, as a matter of course. But here at speakingkorea.com, [ READ MORE ]
Love motels are just as common as corner stores in South Korea, but they aren’t so ubiquitous just because they provide cheap nightly fares and enable prostitution. They play a key role in fostering sexual and romantic relationships. It’s because privacy is at a premium in Korea. It’s a land where marriage is an integral event [ READ MORE ]
Author’s note: this post was updated at 9:18 Korean time. Control of familial finances has changed a lot over the last few decades in Western society. Once generally the domain of men, financial decision are now usually made mutually in modern families, and in some cases both husband and wife deal with their earnings separately. Monetary control [ 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 ]
If somebody told you Korea had a successful transsexual pop singer and actress would you be surprised? Introducing Harisu (or Ha Ri Soo), the stage name for the woman (and former man) Kyung-Eun Lee. After a talent agency discovered her singing at a nightclub in Japan, Harisu (it is a play on “hot issue” — say [ READ MORE ]
Marriage in Korea is huge deal. Typically, if you’re a woman and you aren’t married by thirty, your parents will start to really worry. They will encourage you to go on blind dates to find a man. Some couples marry just a few months after meeting each other. A woman who drove my girlfriend and I [ READ MORE ]