Category: Korean

Sundance 2010: “The Red Chapel”

Friday night was a lot of fun. We ate a tasty dinner at Mazza, a Middle Eastern restaurant that we’ve been meaning to try and then went to the movie theater. It was very hassle-free: we parked in the garage and then walked right in to the theater and sat down to watch Grown Up Movie Star and then afterward just walked to the screening room next door for The Red Chapel. I really enjoyed both movies. We’re going to see 6 shows at Sundance this year and I’m planning on posting about about all of them, so um, considered yourself warned.

The Red Chapel is an extraordinary documentary. Rather than objectively following a subject the director engages in gonzo-style film making in an attempt to capture on film the absurd evil that rules North Korea. Mads Brügger, the Danish director, arranges for two Danish-Korean comedians, Simon and Jacob, to travel to Pyongyang for a few weeks to practice and perform a show as part of a “cultural exchange.” The whole time they’re there Brügger is lying through his teeth to keep the North Koreans in the dark about his true intentions to expose the insanity of the totalitarian regime.

Jacob, who has a muscular disorder and describes himself as a “spastic” is the lynchpin on which the whole enterprise depends. After every day of filming Danish-speaking North Korean censors reviewed the crew’s footage but they couldn’t understand Jacob’s garbled speech. As a result, Jacob emerges in the movie as the lone voice of reason, the only one who can openly question the craziness of what he sees.

Jacob is used by both Brügger, who is open about his intentions of ruthlessly using Jacob for the good of the film, and the North Koreans, who figure that it’s good propaganda to shower a disabled Korean adoptee with affection especially considering the allegations of North Korean sending disabled people to camps.

It’s a riveting film and very moving at times. Ms. Pak, the crew’s North Korean minder, takes a shine to Jacob and smothers him in motherly affection but her ferventness is both unsettling and familiar to anyone who has meet a distant Korean aunt or grandmother. As Jacob points out, while all the North Koreans are kind to him he can see the contempt in their eyes. At one point Jacob has a breakdown after touring a model North Korean school; he’s so creeped out and saddened by the whole situation.

I found myself getting a little emotional a few times during the movie. My mom’s Korean and we still have family living in South Korea. My siblings were adopted from Korea and my brother Steven is developmentally disabled. I couldn’t help imagining what it would have been like if my gentle brother had been born in North Korea. At one point in the movie Jacob asks Ms. Pak if he can meet some North Koreans who are handicapped like him. Her stunned and panicked expression gives credence to the idea that the disabled are not treated kindly in North Korea.

I’m not sure what time of distribution the movie has, but I recommend watching it if you ever get the chance. It really is a fascinating film. If you’re bothered by swearing, the movie does have a fair amount in it (but most of it is in Danish/subtitled).

My Little Bride

One of our family goals for 2010 is to watch less tv…and more movies! E usually goes to bed by 7:30 and N and I like to unwind and watch shows together afterward. But we’re cutting the cord on some of the shows we used to watch like Hell’s Kitchen, 24, and American Idol and resolving to watch more movies from our Netflix queue.

So far it’s been going well and we’ve been watching some fun movies. We just finished a streak of Korean movies that I had added to the queue. One of them was My Little Bride (어린 신부) (2004).

My Little Bride is a romantic comedy about an arranged marriage between a high school student, Boeun, and a young teacher, Sangmin. Boeun’s dying grandfather and their families pressure them to marry in order fulfill a family promise. But Boeun just wants to keep her new husband a secret and finish up high school like a normal kid…and hijinks ensue.

I really enjoyed the movie. It started out a little slow but quickly grew on me. The lead actors give charming performances and Moon Geun Youn (who plays Boeun) has great comedic timing and a talent for slapstick. To be honest, it was a lot funnier that I thought it would be. Even N liked it and he has a lower tolerance for corny Asian comedies than I do. I guess there’s a reason why it was such a big hit in Korea when it came out.

Check it out if you get the chance. If you have some time to kill, you can even watch the whole thing on Youtube. Here’s the first part (of twelve).

In which our author is spanked in the nude by a middle-aged Korean woman wearing a black bra and panties

(But not in that way, you perv.)

I was five years old the first time I went to a mogyoktang, or Korean bathhouse/spa. My mom and I were in Korea visiting relatives and we went to what seemed like a huge indoor pool complex where everyone was female and not wearing swimming suits. I remember dog paddling from one end of the huge tub to the other.

My next visit to a mogyoktang was incredibly embarrassing, but it was all my own fault. The summer after my freshman year in college I went on a study abroad trip to the Korean countryside (this is the trip that I first got to know N on). We stayed in a traditional village (in houses like these) and conducted an anthropomorphic survey of the area. The houses we stayed in didn’t have running water and so we rigged up some camping showers. But using camping showers in the cold morning air gets old and so some of us decided to hitchhike into the nearest town and go to the mogyoktang there.

None of the girls I went with were first generation Koreans: we were all either half or adopted and none of us had much experience with bathhouses. The other girls were more stylish and girly than tomboy me and I was more than a bit intimidated by them. So when the other girls declared that they were going to wear their bathing suits in the mogyoktang I went along. I didn’t want to be the only one not wearing one. But it was SO embarrassing. Everyone kept staring at us and I felt humiliated and vowed never to do it again. After that I usually went to the mogyoktang with the girls I was better friends with. Traumatic bathing suit incident notwithstanding, I was hooked on mogyoktangs.

The next time I was to a mogyoktang was a couple of years ago. A nice Korean spa opened up in Tacoma which my mom started going to. When N and I were up visiting I went with my mom. It was fabulous to soak in the huge tub and then get all the dead skin scrubbed off. If I can fit it into my schedule going to the Korean spa is usually one of the highlights of a visit to my parents’ house.

When I was up in Washington a few weeks ago my mom and sister volunteered to drop me off a spa while they went to a church function (and watched E). It was the first time I had gone to this particular spa and once I got there I was kind of nervous because I wasn’t sure exactly where to go. But I figured it out and went and soaked in the tubs while I waited for my scrub. (Even though I like going to the mogyoktang I always get nervous about the moment when you take off your clothes and walk naked into a room with a bunch of other naked women. But I just do it and then after a minute or two it doesn’t seem like a big deal at all.)

I didn’t like the tubs at this spa as well as others I’ve been to but the scrub/moisturizing treatment I got was the best I’ve ever had. Tana, a middle-aged Korean woman wearing the spa uniform of a black bra and panties, put on exfoliating mitts and scrubbed me from head to toe. It was so relaxing. I felt like a tiny kitten being licked clean. It was simultaneously neat and gross to see the little pills of dead skin come off.

After the scrub Tana had me shower to get all the dead skin off and then she put a cucumber mask on my face and massaged hot oil and milk into my skin. As she was massaging she would rhythmically slap my arms and legs and butt. That’s never happened to me during a scrub before so I don’t know if it was something to improve circulation or if it’s just something Tana enjoys. (Ahem.)

Even though I had just been lying there I was totally wiped out afterward. When it was over and it was time to sit up I almost slid off the table because I was so oily and kind of lightheaded. It was so relaxing and my skin had never felt so silky smooth. If there was a Korean spa nearby I would probably go to it at least once a quarter. But I live in white-bread Utah so for now visiting the mogyoktang will have to remain a treat for when I visit Washington.

I Heart Art: Yeondoo Jung

I recently discovered the work of Korean artist Yeondoo Jung (정 연 두), and I love it. (Thanks for the tip, N!)

A lot of Jung’s work is concerned with dramatizing the inner worlds/memories of average people and then capturing them using photography and film. I’m not really up to speed on the Korean art scene, but he’s apparently one of the most prominent Korean artists working right now: he received the 2007 Artist of the Year Award, given annually by the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul.

I enjoyed browsing through the samples of his work on his web site: I would recommend it. Here are some of my favorite pieces.

For the 2005 series Wonderland Jung uses photography to capture the imaginings of kindergartners.

엄마의 풀밭
Mother’s Garden
c-print, 2004

The series presents costumed adolescents posing in sets based as closely as possible on children’s drawings. He collaborates with many people to bring to life the boundless imagination in the drawings. For four months, Jung oversaw art classes in four kindergartens in Seoul and collected 1,200 drawings by children between the ages of five and seven. After pouring through them, he carefully selected 17 drawings and interpreted their meanings. Then he recruited 60 high school students by passing out handbills at their schools in which he invited them to act out the scenarios in the children’s drawings. In order to recreate faithfully drawing details such as dresses with uneven sleeves or buttons of different sizes, he convinced five fashion designers to custom make the clothing for the photo shoot. He also made props unlike any scale found in reality but similar to those in the drawings.

See more pieces from Wonderland here.

In his 2001 series Bewitched Jung used photography to capture the fantastical dreams of average people. The subjects are photographed once in their everyday environments and then photographed again placed within their fantasies.
See more of Bewitched here.

One of Jung’s more recent projects is 2009’s Handmade Memories which is comprised of six videos Jung made to investigate “the tenuous authenticity of mechanically-produced images.”

From the press release: For this project, Jung has interviewed six elderly strangers who he randomly encountered in parks around Seoul. His opening line – ‘What is the most memorable experience of your life?’ – successfully taps into the pathos of an aging generation that lived through the Japanese occupation of Korea (1910 – 1945) and the Korean War (1950 – 1953). For large segments of this demographic basic necessities such as food and shelter were in short supply as was adequate education. Jung’s interviews teeter precipitously between truth and fiction: some reveal obvious fabrication and embellishment while others border on confessionals, revealing a tension that speaks poignantly to the psychological damage levied on the country’s collective psyche and the fantasies that were invented by so many as a coping mechanism. The interviewees’ dreams – which for the most part have gone unfulfilled – are quick to surface and are laid bare before Jung’s lens.

I’ve loved the images from the films that I’ve seen online. Check them out here.

For more information see Jung’s website and the Tina Kim Gallery (which represents him).

E Loves Pororo

Even though he might not look it, E is one-quarter Korean. I try to expose him to Korean culture when the opportunity arises but I’m not hardcore about it, mostly because I’m not fluent in the language myself so there’s only so much I can do. Elements of Korean culture like food and movies are found in our home and I think E will naturally absorb information about this part of his heritage as he grows.

A while ago my friend Carol (second row from the bottom, third from the right in this photo) sent me links to some Korean kids videos online. E fell in love with this video about the importance of eating vegetables (to view it full screen, click on the magnifying glass on the upper right). E loves, loves, LOVES this video. It’s actually led to a bit of trouble because if you sit down to use the computer he expects you to play it for him and if you don’t he unleashes his wrath as only a 17 month-old can.

I think the animation is really cute. I didn’t know who the characters are but I asked around on Kimchi Mamas and people told me the penguin’s name is Pororo and that it’s a very popular kids show in Korea.

When he watches the video E gets excited and babbles and bounces around. It can be pretty cute. I taped him watching the video with our webcam. The quality’s not that good and it might be pretty boring to non-grandparents, but here you go.

(Watch the original video here.)

How I Met Your Mother

N. found this photo from the study abroad trip to Korea we went on back in the summer of 1999. It cracks me up: I like the sassy thumbs-up N’s flashing but I’m not sure why I’m making that weird smirk.

It’s funny; it wasn’t until the last night of the trip that we even really talked to each other. We had even been in the same Korean classes the year before the trip but we still barely knew each other. For most of the trip I was pining after one guy and spending all of my free time hanging out with another, neither of whom was N. (Yeah, I was just a touch boy-crazy at the time.) N seemed cool but was kind of intimidating at the time.

Details of how we got together will have to wait for another time; today I don’t really feel like typing a long post. For right now let’s just say that things managed to work out in the end.

I would totally watch C-SPAN…

…if stuff like this happened in our congress.


Photos and article from the New York Times online.
By MARTIN FACKLER
Published: December 18, 2008

TOKYO — The parliamentary battle over a contentious free trade deal in South Korea led to a confrontation on Thursday in which opposition lawmakers used a sledgehammer to knock down the doors of a blockaded room in which a committee was discussing the agreement.

Members of the opposition party were sprayed with fire extinguishers from inside as they tried to enter a parliamentary committee room.

Television footage showed fire extinguishers being sprayed at the opposition lawmakers trying to get into the room . At least one person was shown bleeding from the face.

The members of the opposition Democratic Party were trying to stop the trade agreement with the United States from advancing to the floor of parliament for a final vote. The governing party has been seeking to ratify the trade pact by year’s end, saying it would improve South Korea’s competitiveness and ties with the United States. Opponents say it will hurt South Korean farmers.

Violent clashes in the South Korean parliament, called the National Assembly, are not unheard of, reflecting the nation’s feisty brand of democracy. The trade agreement with the United States has been a particularly thorny issue, after massive demonstrations in Seoul earlier this year against the import of American beef.

Thursday’s assault came after the opposition party had threatened to block the deal by using physical force if necessary. Fearing an attack, members of the foreign affairs committee, under control of the governing Grand National Party, had barricaded themselves inside the room as they met.

Security guards and aides from the governing party stood outside the barricaded doors, where scuffles broke out when a dozen opposition lawmakers showed up. The opposition lawmakers then used at least one sledgehammer and crowbars to tear through the doors, only to be thwarted by piles of furniture thrown up as a second line of defense.

The mayhem failed to prevent the pact from being formally introduced to the committee, a step in the process of bringing it to a full parliamentary vote.

The deal to lower tariffs and other trade barriers was signed last year by negotiators from South Korea and the United States, but cannot take effect until ratified by lawmakers in both nations.

The pact faces stiff opposition in United States Congress, where many fear it could disadvantage struggling American automakers.

“Feisty brand of democracy,” indeed!

Oh Paldo World, you’re so dreamy!

There’s a great Koreatown about 40 minutes from my parents’ house. Along South Tacoma Way there are blocks and blocks of Korean restaurants, businesses, stores, and churches. It’s pretty awesome, especially since there are only a few Korean stores and restaurants here in the Salt Lake area.

My mom took us to the new Paldo World grocery store when we were there. It was a lot of fun.

They had a huge selection of items including fresh-made dduk and dumplings (Yum!) I loved looking at the aisle signs; some of them cracked me up.

A whole aisle devoted to rice and all kind of ramen boxes!

No trip to the store is complete without Europeans food!

This was the best aisle in the whole place. Yay for junk food!

I was charmed by the Nagelesque illustration on this tea.

Grocery shopping was fun, but I have to say that my favorite part of the store was the food court. It SO good. It had three separate restaurants. There was so much tasty food: ddukbokki, jajangmyeon, tonkatsu, soups, etc… And everything was very affordable. So we went a little, um, overboard.

One of the restaurants, Chicky Pub, specialized in spicy fried chicken. I loved their Engrish slogan and signage.

At first I was mystified by this sign…

I couldn’t figure out why they put an old-timey western cathouse on the sign.
I mean, check out the women’s expressions! And why are there children with balloons at this cathouse? But then I realized that it was only an illustration of an old-timey western pub where townfolk gathered to enjoy delicious cajun-style fried chicken.

You know, just like they used to have in the old days.

Did you hear the one…

…about the German and the 200 Koreans?

They all went camping together.

So, every Memorial Day weekend the members of the Korean branch (church congregration) that my mom attends go camping. They’re done it every year for over 15 years. Growing up it was pretty much a given that our Memorial Day weekend was going to be spent in the middle of the woods with Korean food simmering over the campfires (even if my sulky teenaged self was not at all interested in being there). Looking back on it now, there were some good times. One year I entertained myself by trying to convince the younger kids that I had a twin sister (named Hope, naturally); another year (I think I was 14) I spent most of the time clumsily flirting with the only boy my age there; and yet another year my sister got engaged to her now husband of 10+ years. So yeah, good times.

Anyway, my mom is a great Korean cook. And she REALLY likes sharing her food with other people. Since they live by the water, she will go dig her legal limit of clams for days leading up to the campout so she’ll have buckets of clams ready to make her special soup when the camp-out arrives. Last week she was digging clams when a “VERY nice looking young man” (her words) came up to her and asked her what she was doing. She explained how you dig clams and he asked her what she was going to use them for. She explained all about her special soup and the Korean campout. It turned out that the guy, whose name was Oliver, was from Germany and on a month-long tour of the States. Anyway, Oliver was intrigued by my mom’s description of Korean food, which he had never tried, and about the church campout.

Long story short, my mom invited him to tag along with her and my brother to the campout and Oliver accepted. He thought that hanging out in the wilderness with 200 Koreans sounded like fun. What a brave guy!