西洋오랑캐

꽃보다 남자…”Man That (Looks) Better Than a Flower.” It’s a pretty stupid term isn’t it? Somehow with the sucess of the film 왕의 남자 this term began showing up on all the Korean versions of Entertainment Tonight, and in all the fashion magazines. What exactly is a “Man that looks better than a flower?” Well friends, today we are going to do an in depth and comprehensive study as to what makes one a 꽃보다 남자.

These lads, for those of you that don’t happen to be 14 year old Chinese girls, are F4. F4 are some sort of Taiwanese ensemble, perhaps singers that were the hunky lead actors in a Taiwanese television program Meteor Garden (流星花園), based on a Japanese comic book, Hana Yori Dango (花より男子). This show aired in Korea, and for some reason, I briefly become all about it.

This program became my first exposure to Flower Men, primarily due to the fact that in Korea it was given the title, 꽃보다 男子. So in my first understanding of the term, 꽃보다 남자, was simply an Asian man with long hair strong jaws, and muscles that make the young girls swoon. And apparently I wasn’t that far off the mark. The series finished it’s run and that was the last I heard of 꽃보다 남자…until this winter.

The winter of 2005 / 2006 brought about the Korean film of the year, 왕의 남자. For those of you unfamiliar with this film, I turn you over to Joel of About Joel, who has a much better thought out and reasoned write up of this film than I could ever hope to create. I’ll wait for you, I promise….

Ok I see you are back. The above picture is 이준기 (Lee Jungi), the current King of the Korean Flower Men. In the film, this was the actor portraying the character kings assumed was a woman (or perhaps knew was a man and didn’t mind). Anyhow, as the film become more and more successful the press (and high school girls) started paying a lot of attention to 이준기 and his looks. The phrase 꽃보다 남자 came back, and my understanding of the term changed.

No longer did I assume it was muscled Asian dudes with nice hair and Superman-esque jaws. Now I was under the impression that the term referred to men that looked like women. “Ah! So 하리수 (Korean post-op transgender Harisu) is the ultimate 꽃보다 남자.” Apparently it doesn’t work that way. The second you have breasts (topless pictures of Harisu…avoid if you have problems with such things), you apparently become ineligable for 꽃보다 남자 status.

So I went back to the drawing board and came up with this theory…if you are a decent looking man and attract hordes of girls to scream and show up anywhere you go, then you are a 꽃보다 남자. Though this is the thing I don’t really understand. Here we have men that are prettier than the girls idolizing them…it would be kind of like American men lusting after big burly women that compete in Lumberjack Games, or have sex with the 1-2-3 Kid.

Anyhow, I’m going to go cut pictures of hot guys out of my Tiger Beat magazines and hang them on my walls…thanks a lot diary, you’re the only one who understands me!

Koreans in general are obsessed with name brands and logos. Sit in a subway station and look at people as they walk by and you’ll be overwhelmed by the insane ammount of labels and logos that people will be wearing. Purses, shirts, hats, belts all need logos. Koreans don’t seem to care if the logo is real or fake, so today we will delve into the isane world that is Korean Puma knock offs.

What originally started off as either a spelling error or minor change to prevent lawsuits (POMA vs. PUMA) quickly became a comedic hit in Korea, so let’s check em out shall we?

Dama is a Korean (via Japanese) billiard term. Since I’m not a pool shark, I’m not sure if I’m correct or not, but I’m pretty sure it is the cue ball.

Pina (피나) is Korean for “To bleed” hence the bloody cat on the shirt.

Three for one. Chima (치마) is Korean for “skirt.” Piwooda (피우다) is Korean for “to smoke (a cigerette / cigar / pipe).” Somehow this became Pima for the purpose of these shirts. Biman (비만) is Korean for “fat” or a “gut” (not “pregnancy” like I first thought when I saw this shirt).

Imma (임마) is like “bastard.” It is commonly directed at ones own children prior to smacking them upside the head. This is not to be confused with ima (이마) which means forehead.

Jana. Well jada (자다) means to sleep in Korean. So there you go.

Pama (파마) is Korean for perm. Check out that sweet ajumma perm.

Hama (하마) is Korean for hippo. Aw so cute!

I’ve never seen this shirt in real life, and might just be someone’s Photoshop creation, but if it does exist it’s pretty easy to understand. Clearly Pika is Korean for “a mouse with a broken tail.”

Another shirt I’ve never seen before, this is probably the best of these knock off shirts. We’re going to consult my dictionary for this one. Goja (고자 / 鼓子) is “a man with underdeveloped genital organs.” Somehow the third…er fifth leg this puma is sporting doesn’t really seem “underdeveloped,” but whatever.

So there you have it: fake Korean Puma shirts revealed (and explained). You can thank me later, or now if you so desire.

I recently entered the 20th century and purchased a DVD / VCR combo device. Now that I have this device, I’ve been watching a lot more m-net (Korean music video channel). You see, as a side effect of my study of Korean and my subsequent relocation to Korea, my younger sister, got into Korean pop music. So now I have a VCR again, and as a service to her taped a bunch of music videos and “live” events off the music channel. While the random videos rolled, I noticed a deeply disturbing trend…there are way too many Korean singers rocking braided hair. Below are some examples:

I think these guys are called Side-B. Not that it’s really important. What is important is the guy in blue’s wack hair.

Usually hot member of Jewlery (the one on the right) totally ruins her look by adding some redankulous braids. The one next to her makes up for it by oozing sex.

picture 002
Originally uploaded by wdunn.

Maybe it’s just me, but they only people who can pull off braids without looking like complete wankers are black people. Sorry white college girl who just got back from a trip to the Bahamas, those braids make you look like a moron too. Anyhow, I prayed that perhaps this trend was just something celebrities were doing, like Puffy Daddy and his shiney moon suits he rocked for awhile. The other day I went to 동대문…and as usual, my prayers were not answered. Countless regular people (male and female) were sporting this horrific braids. Perhaps the worst were the girls who had white string braided in with their hair. Seriously it made their heads look like a mops.

And then I found this….Crazy Head (see photo at right), a hair shop in Hongdae specializing in bestowing this bad hair upon the populous of Korea. That means that there is enough demand for this kind of hair for a speciality shop to exist. It’s going to be a long spring, but at least they aren’t sporting mullets!

I believe it was either Newton or Einstien who said, “The day you forget your camera will be the day when the most photo opertunities present themselves.” Well that’s exactly what happened today. Today after work, U-rim and I went out to do some Christmas shopping (I’m not at liberty to say what we purchased since that would ruin the surprise) at one of the larger shopping areas here in Seoul, and wouldn’t you know, but there was a break dancing contest going on in that area. So I saw people poppin’ and lockin’ and doing the robot and head spins and every other break dancing move avalible.

In addition anytime shopping occurs, poor English is abudant. Some examples, some dude was wearing a satin bowling style jacket (gold colored of course) with a trout on the back and the phrase “I’d Rather Eat Meat!” The other thing I learned today that the big trend for winter fashion in Seoul is the word “Fuck.” I saw countless shirts, hats, pins, and probably pants that used the word fuck as a noun, verb, and adjective. Like the break dancing contest, these sketchy clothing items went unphotographed.

Finally on the way home U-rim decided she wanted pizza, so we went to Pizza Hut and ordered some rediculous Korean style pizza, again no photo. I did recieve some kind of calendar from Pizza Hut which has pictures of all the best random Korean pizzas, so if I ever get a scanner, you people will be in for a treat…or a shock depending on what you think is an appropriate pizza topping.

Anyhow U-rim is wearing a black tanktop and black tights and doing interpretive dancing, so I think that’s my cue to exit stage left. Peace out dudes!