Who makes these Korean kiosks?

Anyone who has been in Korea for more than a few days has seen these kiosks on the streets, because they’re pretty much the same design throughout the whole country. They’re quite good at stopping up pedestrian traffic, somewhat good at getting you what you need every once in a while, not so good at beautifying the city - especially when you look at them from above from the second or third floor of a coffee shop or somewhere. I wonder which company has a monopoly on selling their almost skeletal design. The second article by Prof. Kwon Yeonggeol (권영걸) deals with these kiosks and why they need to go.

Original article

Shops that sadly just don’t mix with the city

The word kiosk is originally from Turkish that signifies a large tent or front entrance set up outside, and simply refers to a place to sell things or a small shop. You can usually find them set up here where people gather, around bus stops. They sell newspapers, magazines and cigarettes, in addition to small things to eat. The problem with them though is
that they also divide the road and hinder people from using it to walk. The small kiosks in Korea are of the ‘mini container’ design, and look pretty much the same no matter where you go (see picture below). The product layout is a chaotic mess, and having the area looking like a mess often makes people feel unpleasant.

Kiosks on the streets of other countries have gone beyond simply being facilities of convenience, and have made the cities beautiful and have given them a certain vigor. The kiosks in the French capital of Paris feel like a kind of sculpture, bringing a feeling of harmony to the nearby scene. The design reflected in its colour scheme, shape and modeled form serves as an advantage to the nearby scene. What would it be like if Korea also put a little effort into not just the store’s function but also the design of its kiosks as well? I hope to see kiosks spring up here and there that are not merely places to sell newspapers and magazines but also ones that also mix well with the surrounding environment.

Sexy Battle!

The spirit of UCC — ‘user-created content’ — has been said to be sweeping across Korea, with ordinary citizens empowered to express themselves in the medium of the internet. What’s really happening, though, is big companies finding a new buzzword to use for selling stuff. Case in point: two Korean racing girls releasing some professionally-produced cellphone cheesecake under the moniker of UCC.

These sexy girls have gotten into hot one-round match. It’s called ‘Sexy Battle’. The idea is have a reader get together with models and make a UCC photo album to appear in the ‘Sexy Battle’ corner.

Following the idea of one reader of two model’s mobile homepages, it was decided to make a mobile photobook.

For the first models, super racing girl Hwang Shinae, who is expected to follow in the footsteps of Oh Yuna, and the bewitching long-legged 20-year old Lee Seonah were matched up.

If readers wish to admire the models’ profiles and ideas, just hit ‘19+nate/ⓝ’ and go to ‘Sexy Battle’.

“I’m racing girl Hwang Shinae. I was born on January 7, 1983, putting me at 24 in the middle of the age of full bloom. I’m 1 meter 71 centimeters, weigh 39 kilograms and proud of my perfect S-shaped body measuring 35-23-36 around. I’ve got a refereshing face and my waist is especially charming and praiseworthy. I’m looking for a guy who’ll go swimming with me in the day and watch movies with me at night, but I don’t have him yet. This is my first time to decide to have a mobile photobook, but it’s a chance to be as happy as if I found my prince. Please give me a lot of ideas!”

“I’m college student Lee Seonah. Born on April 25, 1987, I’m now exactly 20 years old. I’m 32-23-34 at 1 meter 70 centimeters and 42 kilograms, and my sleek legs and bubbly personality are my best points. I enjoy shopping, cross-stitching and dancing. Usually I love trying new things so I decided to make a mobile photobook but I’m still nervous about it just like when I first started college. My dream is to be an actress so I decided on this plan, and if I get a lot of experiences it’ll be great. I’ll hold close to my heart the privilege of having this kind of chance at the tender young age of twenty.”

For more racing girl info, check out Galbijim’s pages.

Pop art meets Oriental painting

The blogs over at Naver are often a good place to find some pretty funky stuff. Case in point — one art student’s project of pairing Hollywood heroes with traditional Chinese calligraphy. This particular blog’s praise of him may be excessive, but we think it’s pretty cool anyway. Take a look.

Majoring in traditional Oriental art at Seoul University, Song Dong-hyeon is, in his late twenties, at an appropriate age to be called a master painter…

He’s already put on a private exhibition. Even though these are paintings they’ve got funny Chinese names. So let’s take a look in appreciation at these funny author’s painters.

Here it’s an Aliens vs. Predator ssireum match. It’s similar to Kim Heung-do’s parody but ET spectators are added. On the left is a candy-selling character who looks like a certain something in Star Wars….

Hey, I’m walking here!

Since last year, the Joongang Ilbo has been publishing articles on city design by a professor named 권영걸. The large majority of these not only apply to non-Koreans as well, but also compare Korea to just about every other country in the world, and once again are pure common sense. Here he tackles the issue of pedestrian rights, which is a pressing one to those of us in Seoul and elsewhere who have to dodge drivers blowing red lights into our crossing lanes.

The street is the area in which people and cars meet. Having crosswalks installed to divide the road between the sidewalks is for the protection of both the pedestrian and the driver.

However, we find most drivers waiting in front of crosswalks with agitation for the pedestrian lights to change. It feels as if the pedestrians have decided to borrow the car’s roadway for a period of time until the light changes and the road resorts back to its proper owner.

In developed countries we find a widespread driving culture where pedestrians are given the right of way even not at crosswalks. Well, what about Korea? Most of the lines painted on the road are centered on the car, not the pedestrian.

In roads in England one can often see a zig-zag pattern on the roads. This is a type of notice to those from far away that there’s going to be a pedestrian crossing up ahead.

The broken line hits the driver visually, having a strong effect in catching their attention. This is because the straight line has suddenly turned into a zig-zag pattern, letting the driver know that though as yet unseen, pedestrians are up ahead. Then the driver slowly lowers the speed of the vehicle and is able to wait while the pedestrian crosses the road. The broken-line zig-zag pattern not only helps the pedestrian stay safe, but gives a strong feeling of liveliness and added exuberance to the road.

Lane markers at a Korean pedestrian crossing.

Both sides of a pedestrian crossing in England.

Too many foreign models

When you look at advertising in Korea you may be struck by the prevalence of white faces hawking all manner of products, especially makeup and clothing.  Underwear models in particular are nearly always white. Are South Koreans truly dazzled by whiteness, trapped in a colonial mindset? Do they just enjoy making whites work for them for a change? Is this all good or bad, ultimately? One reader of the Munhwa Ilbo made her voice heard, and we bring you the translation.

In the pamphlets and other promotional materials for department stores and every kind of credit card, almost every model is a foreigner. The same for child models. It might not matter for the brands that originate from overseas, but the products manufactured in our country are also all using foreign models.

The fliers for advertising sales are also bursting with foreign models. This leads to an extravagant waste of foreign currency and is the reason that the numbers of our own models are cut short.

These are the things we wear and eat, so shouldn’t we have them adapted to our way of life? They’re not being exported to other countries, and even our traditional cultural products are having foreign models appearing for them. When I see these kinds of advertisements and fliers it hurts my pride.

Recently I heard that a lot of Russian women are coming to our country and that their modeling fees are cheap. Of course from the perspective of the person selling things hiring thin and low-paid foreign beauties is a good strategy to cut costs.

Even so, when you take the long view the result could be to gain something small and lose something great. This is said to be a competitive society, but how about deciding on a fixed ceiling above which no more foreign models can be used in advertisements and so on?

Presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak says “be a Myung-Bak-tious”

With the intrigue of the election season fast approaching and the candidates jockeying for position, one can read no end of writers speculating about the outcome and tracking who’s up and who’s down. Keeping up with it is exhausting. We thought our readers might enjoy a lighter look at the most entertaining candidate, former mayor of Seoul and somewhat nutty guy Lee Myung-bak.

According to ohmynews, in celebration of Teacher’s Day on May 15th, Lee Myung-bak, former mayor of Seoul, served as a one-day honorary teacher at Daeshin high school in Daejeon. The emphasis of the mayor’s lecture included a Konglish phrase he himself coined. The mayor wrote proudly on the blackboard, “Be a MBtious”, as though being ambitious was simply not enough. Some may wonder what makes him full of himself.

Lee Myung-Bak is commonly seen as an exemplary, self-made entrepreneur. He was born into a very poor family in Osaka, Japan in 1941 and later moved to Pohang, Republic of Korea where he spent the latter half of his childhood years. At age 37, Lee Myung-Bak was appointed CEO of Hyundai Construction and maintained his leadership role in the corporation for 15 years. In 2002, he was elected as Mayor of Seoul. During his time as Mayor, Lee Myung-Bak implemented two large-scale projects that were both exposed to massive amounts of publicity during his 4 year term of office. The first project, the restoration of the river Cheonggyecheon in downtown Seoul, has been assessed as successful by many critics. The other project, the reformation of the public transportation system of Seoul, initially caused a great deal of confusion. However, it is generally agreed that the reformed system has created a better means of transportation and is symbolized as Lee Myung-Bak’s main achievement.

In addition to his long list of lifetime achievements, Lee Myung-Bak is also well known for dozens of awkward public statements that are almost as awkward as his grasp of English grammar. Like any other public official, he has earned a plethora of ridicules and criticisms that have resulted from his lack of finesse. One of his most well-known rhetorical gems was reported in this article:

“Seoul, the capital of the Republic of Korea, is a divine city ruled by God and Seoulites are God’s people. (……) I dedicate Seoul to God with young people’s hearts and efforts who dream of and pray for Seoul’s restoration and rehabilitation.” (at a prayer meeting at Seoul JangChung stadium on May, 31st in 2004.)

Here is another piece of protestant elder Lee Myung-Bak’s speech that has recently spawned controversy. When he was asked what he thinks of abortion, he replied:

“Basically, I’m against it, but you know, there are inevitable cases. For instance, if a child is to be born as disabled, it seems this inevitable abortion should be accepted. However, fundamentally I’m against abortion. It may sound conservative.”

MB’s official homepage (in Korean)
MBtious Cyworld (in Korean)

Hangul for the world?

The Chosun Ilbo recently published a rather odd little editorial about foreigners learning Korean. A typical article like this just goes ra-ra, hangul is awesome and scientific, but this one is special, mixing it in an unappealing mix of anti-Americanism and racism towards Southeast Asians, and a strange call for a radical restructuring of the Korean language itself. Take a look.

The ranks of foreigners learning hangul are growing. Not to the same degree as us learning English, but still, many foreigners are coming in to learn our language. I heard that last year the number of international students from foreign countries passed 30,000 for the first time. Of course the greatest number of them is from Southeast Asia but it’s welcome news anyway. Of course they must study hangul, the native tongue. Not only that but we wonder how many people will learn hangul. Last year, while living in Hanoi, author Yeon Su-cha worked to check up on the “Hangul Wind” there. It’s the result of our economy’s growth and of the Korean Wave. At the three universities in Hanoi, there is stiff competition to enter the Korean courses and after graduation, the employment rate is 100%.

In today’s world, we can say the planet is becoming a global village. Last year the number of Koreans who traveled abroad reached 10 million while the number of foreign tourists who came to Korea was 6 million. Our daily lives are being globalized and American stock prices have an immediate effect on our markets. The war in Iraq is causing neighboring countries to experience war and suffering too. The destruction of oil refineries in the desert region is directly connected to our domestic existence. There is no more center. Anyplace can be a center or a fringe.

In any case, foreigners learning Korean all say that our hangul is just too difficult. You might ask why learning a foreign tongue is difficult. We learn English for 10 years or more and, though we cannot speak it perfectly, it’s enough to guess at the meaning of even difficult things while in our language, the special thing is high speech levels. High speech is divided into distinct parts, which causes grumbling among foreigners who study hangul in confusion. Among all the parts of our grammar this is the most difficult.

For the globalization of hangul, it would be best if these exceptions were reduced and basic rules elevated. In general though, doesn’t everything have to be developed into an easier form of use? In this age of globalization, I wonder if our hangul doesn’t need to evolve so more can use it.

Korean 9th most useful language in the world: UN

Original article

Chinese #2, Korean #9

According to a UN survey on the distribution and use of the world’s most important languages, the following languages make up the top ten: #1 English, #2 Chinese, #3 German, #4 French, #5 Russian, #6 Spanish, #7 Japanese, #8 Arabic, #9 Korean, and #10 Portuguese. Notably absent from the list this year was Italian, which has lost a lot of importance since its economy began stagnating in 1985.

One other notable change is that the UN will be recognizing only the simplified Chinese characters used on the mainland as standard Chinese starting in 2008.

Where else can Korean be used besides Korea? See Using Korean Abroad for details.

Video games surfing the Korean Wave

Right into Vietnam, in fact, as one reporter from free daily The Focus discovered. A boatload of Korean stars, films, and soap operas have hitched their ride on the Korean Wave before, and some have recently said it to be running out of steam. Video games may not be so obviously Korean as films like The King and the Clown so perhaps they’re actually running on their own steam rather than just along for the ride.

You may be interested to know the astoundingly cheap hourly rate for internet cafes in Vietnam — just about 300 won an hour, while in Korea we pay over 1,000.

Since the late 1990s in Vietnam when the beginning of the broadcasting of Korean dramas pulled along the Korean Wave, Korean games are following right behind now, causing young Vietnamese to get hooked on them.

Right now at least 10 online Korean games are offering service in Vietnam including ‘Audition’, ‘Mu Online’, ‘Ragnarok’, ‘Granado Espada’, and ‘Silk Road Online’. Among them, the T3 Entertainment-developed and Yedang Online-serviced online dance game Audition has recorded 3.2 million members and 110,000 joiners as it leads the Wave.

In Ho Chi Minh City’s top internet cafe, 22-year old female college student Vu Thi Hue said, “My friends and I live our lives all wrapped up in the music and dance game Audition,” adding that the praise Korean games receive is far from frugal.

Together with Audition, Webgen’s massively multiplayer online game “Mu Online” has received the same tremendous reaction.

In another internet cafe 20-year old male college student Nguyen Phuc Nam said “There are 10 fun games with service in Ho Chi Minh City but to me the best is Mu Online”, adding “on the weekend I play Mu Online all day.”

In May of 2005 Webgen struck a deal with Vietnamese publisher FPT to offer ‘Mu Online’.

In September the same year, a rushed beta release of “Mu Online” attracted 500,000 subscribers.

Vietnam’s internet population is 7.5 million, and if its 800,000 online gamers are taken into account it makes for an astounding total.

Park Jae-woo, director of overseas operations for Yedang Online, said “If the 140,000 subscribers to Vietnam’s most popular online roleplaying game are considered, the upward trend in Audition’s popularity is amazing”, and that “Vietnamese gamers used to do just roleplaying games, but now they’re hunting for casual games.”

Following that he added, “As there is deep interest about Korea’s other casual games, from now on the commercial prospects for the market appear bright.”

A Korean in Mexico

2006 Miss Korea pageant winner Lee Ha-nui is making waves in Mexico as a Miss Universe contender. This article, translated from the Munhwa Ilbo, gives a taste of her recent successes, which are wide, though the reporter seems especially delighted by her popularity with one group in particular. In any case, Korea Beat certainly wishes her all the best.

With the Miss Universe pageant set to be held on the 28th voting is underway in every country. One ‘Miss Korea’, namely Lee Ha-nui, is putting her name up for the shortlist with nothing left to chance.

On the 7th, North American beauty pageant website GB announced that the fifth-ranked Lee will be dropped to 9th place on the 10th. Even so she was slotted into the top 10 of 77 Miss Universe 2007 entrants.

On the 6th through 8th in the southern Mexican region of Chiapas, Lee received more attention. It was then that pageant judges and citizens designated her as having the eighth-most beautiful face. First place went to motherland Mexico’s representative, second place to Venezuela, third to Spain, fourth to Tanzania, fifth to Jamaica, sixth to Estonia, and seventh to Finland.

Asia’s power is becoming all the greater. The same Filipino website which lifted Ukraine to first place raised Lee to fifth place on its beauty chart.

Lee is becoming more beautiful in the eyes of the white race too. Lee was selected from among 20 women to be Poland’s ‘Miss Globe’. Belgium’s ‘Miss & Mister’ summarized Asia’s greatest beauties in this Miss Universe to be Japan, The Phillippines, Thailand, India, and 2006 Miss Korea Lee Ha-nui.

After attending media and interviews on the 9th Lee will attend a beach party in the resort town of Cancun.