South Korean government is so f**ked up in assisting rape victims

Writer Gong Ji-yeong, horrified by a case where 16 high school students had gang-raped a disabled student in a bathroom but the government refused to offer compensation to the student because "she hadn't resisted strongly enough", wrote on her Twitter feed that "I wonder whether this country is no place to raise a daughter."


From Korea Beat


"she hadn't resisted strongly enough" your head! Shame on you ROK government!

Overseen in Seoul 7

Advert inside the subway station (Seoul National university). I like it for the gender roles they portray in it :3

Inside the train

Erm, worm farm with bamboos? Near National Library of Korea

While doubting if they serve Espresso with sand, look at the description: it's sandwich & espresso. Thank God. Near Anguk or Insadong.

Rape face comes in many shapes and styles

Via Asian Correspondence:


Police were searching for a man believed to be the culprit in a series of attempted rapes committed on Saturday the 26th of last month in Gwangju.

The suspect, who looks like any other students/nerds/good boy.

Source: NEWSIS via NAVER

It's creepy to think that women (nowadays including small girls as young as 5 years old) literally have to watch out for every single male on the street.

In an updated news, the culprit was arrested after police received a tip from a local citizen. And know what? He attempted to kill himself. So much for Northeast Asian's high suicidal attempt culture.

Speaking of committing suicides, we had a chance to talk to a professor from Sweden who is an expert on Korean culture, he commented that the media in Korea is not covering the actual suicides news, only reporting those with 'interesting' stories or happened in a 'bizarre' ways that has 'news values' (or, 'entertainment values'). That explains why we don't read so many suicide news as we anticipated after arriving in Korea. 

Overseen in Seoul: Konglish for KFC

This is the KFC outlet right outside of the entrance of Seoul Zoo, or Seoul Grand Park. It was closed at the time and I spotted something funny on the adverts and took out my camera to snap the promotional menu:

For Burger set $10 pack, you will have 2 pieces of chicken, 2 roasted garlic burgers, 1 can (isn't it supposed to be served in cups in fast food outlets?) of (Coca) Cola, and... a can of Orange juice (refer to the picture of the set above).

For Chicken set...

Chicken 4.

While I was snapping, 2 girls passed me by and they chuckled at my action of taking photos of KFC menu... guess they did not even notice something is wrong with their Konglish :p

Morita Sushi in Jongno-gu, Seoul

All photos are copyrighted by me.

Morita family manages this, I guess :)

Morita (森田) on top left

Hui-cheon Jo-bap (Korean, top center)

Kaiten Sushi (Japanese, top bottom) 

迴轉壽司(Mandarin, Korean Hanja, Japanese Kanji)

Directions at the bottom of this post.

Nice wasabi and soy sauce. Damn, forgot to include the Korean pickled vege on the left tray!

As soon as you are seated, a bowl of soup is served. While you think it is miso soup, you're wrong.... (drum rolls please)...

It is Korean doenjang soup without anything in it XD

The sushi above is supposed to be the cheapest sushi on the kaiten... at ₩2000.

These are not cheap bamboo chopsticks, but metal ones (refer to the previous photo).

The container next to it is pickled garlics. Sorry, garlic is not my favorite even it is sweet after being pickled.

On the left, the sushi I never miss, Unagi Sushi (鰻寿司), teriyaki-roasted freshwater eel (wikipedia).

On the right, unidentified squid/octopus in Edomae Nigiri style (江戸前握り). 

Both of these were my favorites  o(≧ω≦)o

I have no idea what is this. A little bit salty, a little bit butter-ish taste from mayonnaise. 

In Gunkan Maki style.

One of the most recognizable sushi, Ikura Gunkan Maki (イクラ軍艦巻き).

But this one here doesn't taste good. I added more wasabi and soysauce, but it didn't help either way.

The most exquisite looking sushi I ever seen on kaiten.

Served on a big sea clam, the thing on top is chewy so I suppose it is some kind of... sea creature. Sorry, not helpful at all :p

Taste okay to me.

6 plates of sushi at Morita's cost ₩21000.

Would like to try out food at Izakaya (居酒屋) in Korea next time :)

(click to enlarge the lousy map)

Get off at Gwanghuamun station on Line 5 (purple line). Find Exit 1 or 8. Morita Sushi is right opposite the Sejong Art Center's backyard, at Green balloon B.

On another note (totally unrelated to food):

The mention of the name Morita "森田"always reminds me of Morita senpai from Honey and Clover:

✿ ♥♥♥  \(≧▽≦)/  ♥♥♥  ✿

Overseen in Seoul 5

I missed the event on the 60th anniversary of Korean War broke out....

A change of scene at Sejong Art Center's staircase

http://keepmankind.com/

More election posters

I missed these in my previous post, but I think it's worth another post on its own, so here you go:

All taken on the election day.

Look at the poster next to the candidate number 7. That's what we call AWESOME and SUPER.

At first I thought it is just a movie or theater poster purposefully placed next to the candidate's poster. 

But no, it's not.

The wall is numbered XD

Someone is putting a big cross on Candidate number 1's poster (second from left). Despite that, he still won. Hmmm.

Across the street, opposite the said numbered wall.

Election campaign in Korea: a photo blog

*Scheduled post*

I wish to blog about this on the eve or on the day of election. But I was too busy aka too lazy to do so, so I only drafted this post a moment ago :P

Originally intended to write a serious post about it and post it in my "academic blog", but now I decide to make it a light one and post this in my, you name it, the procrastination blog. XD

On May 29th 2010

One of the annoying campaign vans that made their stops right outside of our officetel and woke us up in case we overslept. Thank you so much, Seoul mayor's candidates.

On May 30th 2010

Another one near our officetel.

On May 31st 2010:

A

And another. This one parked by the roadside (and hey, it's a yellow line there!). With the candidate's cheer-leading team consisted of ajossis and ajjummas, sometimes young guys and ladies too, they lined up in front of their van or truck and start singing, shouting slogans, repeat the candidate's song over and over again, and the candidate would shake hands with passer-bys and so on.

B

A guy in black suit (probably a businessman around the the area) snapping photos.

C

So as the crowds across the street who were waiting for the traffic light turned green. 

And also people like me snapping from our residential unit, haha.

On 1st June 2010:

A

Another candidate.

B

It was driving very slowly.

C

I'm not sure why is this van so clean and white. Campaigning for a clean government? LOL

D

This van didn't make a stop like the previous one, but drove slowly on the road. So we can see how pissed was the black car behind it while the other smart drivers drove to the other side of the lane to avoid the blockage or slow traffic on the "campaign lane".

Some other days in Seoul Special City:

The banners at the City Hall reconstruction site.

On some building

Candidate 1 on Seoul Press Building. 

His banner could be hung on this tall building because... he was the incumbent Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon.

Oh Se-hoon of the ruling Grand National Party was re-elected as Seoul Mayor. The first incumbent to be elected for the second time. 

Wow, that's some achievement isn't it? See the identical smiling face to his poster after the razor-thin win over an opponent (the first female mayor candidate---I wished she had won and made history) HERE.

Local election is nationwide in Korea, so mayors, governors, councilors and education chiefs (wow) were holding their campaigns in every cities and provinces in Korea at the same time. (Source: Arirang---> click on the link to read about the early report on the election day and the interview between Seoul mayor candidates and Arirang, Korea's Global TV.)  

Snapped this when passing by the region between Jinju and Namhae on tour bus.

This was when I realized the election is not restricted to Seoul Mayor election but nationwide.

Near Ssangye temple, Hadong, South Kyongsang (or Gyeongsang) Province.

Inside Jeonju Hanok Village, right outside of Pungnam Gate of Gyeonggijeon, LOL. Blasting the candidate's song, a rendition of a classical song widely known in East Asia, which I know is available in Taiwanese Minnan language.

This is the only election campaign we bumped into while on the tour. If they were going to spam all touristic sites we would be very pissed, LOL.

Photos are copyrighted by me.

Overseen in Seoul: PDA in Korea

PDA as in public display of affection, not personal digital assistant ;)

At the fountain in front of General Yi statue on Sejongno, on election day (Wednesday, a public holiday).

A lovely pair of mum and daughter.

They knew I was snapping photos of them :p

I never took the show of affection among the Korean families seriously, until a fellow Anthropologist-Sociologist friend tells me about it. After some observation, I realized their public display of affection (PDA) is truly more apparent than other Northeast Asian countries.

Korean couple

Korean couple 2

Korean couples have never been shy of showing their affections and intimacy in the public. When they walk on the street you will always see one of the guy's arms around their girl friend's shoulder or waist and another vacant one holding each other's hand, or the girl clinging or leaning on the boyfie/fiance/hubby's arm. And when they're not walking (i.e. waiting for the traffic lights; resting under a tree, hanging out in a park etc), they will hold/stroke each other's face, patting on the head, kissing, and display their lovey-dovey publicly. I only show the moderate ones here because on ethical ground it's better for me to mosaic the intimate couples' faces but I'm lazy to do that. And yeah, I've been shamelessly photographing couples, with hope to get some nice love-themed photographs... without permission.

It's surprised to find how mushy the guys are :)

Including this lovely ajossi who fanned his lovely wife at Jogyesa during the Buddha's birthday celebration :)

Victory Korea

I didn't bother to watch the girl bands' World Cup MVs because they look ridiculous on the thumbnails. This one by Super Juniors caught my eyes in the major red outfits and the Dae-Han-Min-Guk wording on their T-shirts. More about what is attractive about the T-shirts after the video:



Dae-Han-Min-Guk is the name of Republic of Korea in their native language. It literally means the "great Korean nation (state)". What intrigues me is the use of Hanja (aka Chinese character 漢字) for the first word "Dae" which means "great". Why not using their hangul (Korean language/alphabet) that they are so proud of consistently in printing/spelling the name? Instead of 대한민국, they use 大한민국. Well, actually they do have all-hanja name: 大韓民國. Despites the little mystery in the use of word, I have to say the T-shirt looks very good and I bet my red-color-loving friends would love these T-shirts, or, the tank top XD
Or love it for the sake of Super Juniors, LOL. 


By the way I like the fact that they use their famous "Sorry Sorry" dance moves in this World Cup song (for people who click on the link to watch the MV, prepare your stomach for the pronunciation of the word "Sorry" XD). I can imagine the other girl bands are incorporating their famous dance moves in their World Cup songs as well^^ And yeah, imagine how funny/irony it is: if they lose, they can blame the 'sorry' dance moves that is incorporated into the 'victory' song, hahaha.

I admit that I like the beats of this song but when I attempted to listen to it for the second time I started to find I don't really like it. May be it is because of the typical-all-nation-craze-patriotism portrayal in the first half of the PV that got me, haha.

Okay, now I'm gotta off to study about Korean strategic issues instead of Korean pop culture.

Overseen in Seoul 3

I have no idea if it is intended or unintentionally spelled that way... T_T

If not mistaken, this coffee shop is opposite of Manchester United Cafe and Olive Young beauty shop, somewhere between Jongno 3-ga and Jonggak.

On another note, check out this post and MV about a guy who makes flowers look ugly and his perfect beautiful features can make a girl cry. It's really exaggerated, I know. But this is K-pop. Sigh.

Spring in Seoul 2010

Didn't have time to update much about Spring cherry blossoms like other Korean bloggers did. Now that most cherry blossoms are no more (some are still in full bloom in some areas), only then I have time to upload the photos here T_T

All photos' copyrights by me.

At National Assembly (國會), Yeouido (汝矣島).

The "cherry blossom road" outside of the National Assembly, where the Spring festival is held.

Feel like eating the petals XD

Teacher shows the children: "this is 벚꽃". Yes, don't say "sakura" in front of the Koreans, haha. Nor "櫻花" XD

Class photo~

It's beautiful, isn't it.

Beauties with beautiful flowers.

Ajossi and ajumma also taking photos of flowers with their cellphone or camera. It's trendy to do so.

Unlike our experience in Australia, if we snap a close-up photo of flowers by the roadside or food on our plate, old gentlemen  will ask "why are you taking the photo of the flower/food?" like we're some freaks, LOL.

I'm not sure what's with magnifying the cherry trees.... o__O

But it's cool to have class outside of the classroom^^

Individual graduation photo? They even have the professional photographer to take photos of the students, how nice! 

Korean magpie 韓國喜鵲

They are in black-white-blue color, how interesting!