I moved. Don’t tell anyone.

1. Random people pointing at me and declaring:
a) “Hello,” or some other random English phrase and then laughing at however I respond.
b) “Wow a foreigner!”
2. 회식. Not so much the meal itself, but the fact that they are pretty much mandatory here. Seriously I have better things to do on a Friday evening that hit up noraebang with the boss.
3. Vomit on the streets.
4. Gag Concert, 웃찾사, et. al. I could live here a thousand years, and I still would not understand what makes any of these shows funny.
5. Buses. In particular the 마을 버스.
6. “빨리! 빨리!” There are seriously some things that don’t need to be done at the speed of light.
7. The shock and awe of others at my ability to do incredibly simple tasks such as using chopsticks.
8. …

Aw I can’t do it! I’ve had a great time here I don’t wanna go!!! I’m going to miss cheap as hell Korean food. I’m going to miss wicked fast internet access. I’m going to miss the fact that I can get pretty much everything delivered to my house. I’ll even miss the randomness that are the commercials on AFKN. Camp Casey, Area 2…thanks for being here so I could watch Three Stooges re-runs, and The George Lopez show! Shit…where’s a video of “Time Of Your Life?”

Anyhow that’s it. I haven’t decided if I’ll continue writing here or not, either way I will most likely not do anything before March here, so for the meantime, if you need to get in touch with me send an email. Thanks for everything. This is Wyatt Dunn signing off.

Ah the things geeks look for on the internet! Another month has come and gone so let us take a quick look at some of the more precious things people were searching for when then stumbled drunkenly into my backyard and threw up in my pool.

haircape
judge judy
MALE STRIPPERS SEOUL KOREA
dweji band ducks
the saurus
japan molester in train sample
korea pubes
Knight Rider theme
are pig ham hocks safe for a dog to eat?
old haircape
metalworker
naked men hiking
“I wore a hanbok” (Me too!)
i hate gwyneth paltrow (Me too!)
howe caverns adventure tour
wackers pet shop
“wasn’t having it”
korea prostitute ministry
watch degrassi the next generation famous underware episode
third grade coloring pages paintbrushes
bus seat Europe
internet games including naked men
soldier with eyepatch sex
shannon tweed sex scenes
makkoli seafood coupon
how to tune a television into a sega mega drive
chuck zito
ac slater
“dancin’ machine” thing “video screen”
wackers pet store
Roller Jam Girls
my taint of insanity
super peer
what+are+some+unpublished+lyrics+from+Motley+Crue?
ride on robot animals elephant batteries
funny names for kimono
kwanza&food
What happened to “Stephen Revere”
has a pig ever eaten a child?
hot asian ladies doing sex
how can we hold hands at school girlfriend & boyfriend
“fuckin’ usa” korean origin olympics
“hyori” “haircut”
hammerman theme
Made in Incheon, Korea　ＢＣＲＩＣＨ (This is only funny if you know what BC Rich is…)
bibimbab exposition
jjimjilbang porn
odeng machine fc
photos of mullet hairstyle on hyori
what did my daughter drink to have a miscarriage?
wassabi shirt
cement factory logo (You best not steal my logo…unless you send me a copy of it on a shirt. Then it’s totally cool.)

For starters it was my sister-in-law’s wedding day, so for whatever reason we had to get up at the crack of dawn (regardless of the fact that the wedding wasn’t until 12:00). I didn’t have a lot to do to prepare. My suit was already pressed, so all I had to do was get a shower and a shave going on and then stay out of the way of others. I did this by playing Feel The Magic on my my wife’s Nintendo DS.

Anyhow a couple hours later it was 10:15 and we were on our way into Seoul. Why did we leave so early? Apparently to beat the non-existant traffic. Some 25 minutes later we arrived. It is apparently the duty of those family members who aren’t getting married that day to play host. At first I was assigned the task of collecting the envelopes of money and giving out meal tickets to people who arrived, but some uncles took that task from me leaving me to stand by the door and shake the hands of people ranging from those I’ve seen 10 or so time, to those I’ve never met, and thank them for coming. It was far less awesome, and presented far less opportunities to stick my hand in the till.

The wedding itself was pretty much what one comes to expect from a Korean wedding (aside from my own which was totally awesome). Here are some of the highlights from the wedding ceremony that I recall. For starters when the wedding began Jinhui and I both noticed that her father was not seated in his throne (any of you who have attended weddings in Korea know of what I speak), so I was sent to go find him. After a quick sweep of the area turned up nothing I went to return to Jinhui with the bad news of a lost father only to see him leading my sister-in-law down the aisle. I kind of smacked myself in the head and was like, “Oh yeah…this is that kind of wedding.” I’m pretty sure Jinhui had the same reaction.

There was some manner of MC. This particular MC’s speech was awesome, in that he stated, “Now that you are married, the most important thing for you to do is take care of your parents.” I thought that was pretty random. This wasn’t like a 30th wedding anniversary in which the dude was addressing children and grandchildren, this was directed at newlyweds. Also during the ceremony, my mother-in-law had to hug some people (namely her daughter and son-in-law version 2.0), but instead of hugging them or even giving them the “good game” quasi-hug shoulder tap, she just kind of touched their hands. It was kind of humorous.

Following the wedding we went upstairs and had some food. I’m not really all about buffets anymore. There’s always a lot of food there, but nothing is really outstanding. Furthermore, when I go to a buffet I feel the need to gorge myself to “get my money’s worth” even when I’m not actually paying for the food I’m eating. So I usually end up eating too much, busting a gut, and feeling sick for the remainder of the day. This time, since I had to walk around the dining area and tell everyone that Jinhui and I were leaving for America soon and probably would not be seeing them again anytime soon, I did not bust a gut. I was threatened with death, dismemberment, and other acts of violence if I did not take care of Jinhui. On the flipside, one of Jinhui’s aunts told me that if Jinhui didn’t listen to me, I should send her back to Korea and she would make her listen. Good times…good times!

With that all done, we headed for Shinchon. I’m not really sure why but I think it had something to do with going to a record store, since that’s what we did when we first arrived. As we were getting off the subway I found 1,000 won on the ground which is pretty neat. At the record store, I picked up the best of Pipi Band and Pipi Longstocking. While I was looking about I heard Jinhui conversing with the girl at the counter, “Do you have the latest Powerman 5000 album?” “Yes, it’s over here.” “Great! Wyatt, I’m getting this.” Jinhui later explained the reason for her purchase, which is pretty much one of the truest truths regarding rock or any music for that matter, “After I saw them (in this case Powerman 5000, but it can be applied to all musicians) perform live, I was more interested in them and wanted to hear their albums more.” True truth!

With some CDs purchased, we decided to go discharge some fake firearms at one of those shooting galleries that can be found on the side streets in Shinchon. It was 2,000 won each, so we paid with a 5,000 won note and got a 5,000 won note and a 1,000 won note back in return. We then proceeded to shoot targets. I somehow was awesome at shooting the b.b. gun I was given and racked up enough points to win some small stuffed animal (it was a rabbit). Jinhui was slightly less awesome at shooting, though did manage to hit the two smallest / most valuable targets.

Following our shooting gallery experience we traveled to a cinema theater in order to check out the film, 후황花 (En: Curse of the Golden Flower / 滿城盡帶黃金甲). The film was pretty much awesome. It looked outstanding, and unlike 中天, the story was fairly great too.

After said film we went to a bar and got our soju cocktail and stuff on a stick going on. By stuff on a stick I speak of the awesomeness that is 오뎅 and 꼬치. Jawsome!!! From there we got on a bus and rode a bus back to our homestead. It was a pretty rocking day.

For those of you that care or are perplexed this celebration was for my wife’s grandfather…which I guess makes him my grandfather-in-law (if such things exist). Anyhow he lives in the country and was having a big ass birthday party since he was turning 90 or 91 or 92 (I got all three numbers from different people), so the party was held at the local senior citizen center. There was a decent spread of food but far too many relatives. Relatives are fine in small doses, but when there are that many I feel like I have to say the same junk again and again. “We’re leaving in the begining of February.” “Our flight is on February first.” “The first of February is when we leave.”

Aside from that the other thing that I dislike about these family gatherings is there are always one or two relatives that haven’t seen me before so the novelty of a white guy that can speak Korean is still mind boggling to them. Most of the other relatives: the afore mention grandfather, aunts and uncles, and first cousins have all seen me enough that the novelty has worn off and I’m just “Jinhui’s husband.” But there’s always some second cousin or nephew or some random 팔촌 guy that finds my existance amusing, meaning they try to make me do all the stuff they think only Koreans can do.

“Here eat this kimchi.”

Chomp!

“Wow! He ate kimchi and used chopsticks to do so! Can you drink soju?”

“I can. Seeing as how it’s like 12:00 in the afternoon I’d rather not.”

“C’mon. Just one glass.”

“Fine.”

Chug!

“Wow! You need some anju. Eat this raw beef. You can eat raw beef right?”

“Yes, but since I ate like 3 plates of food before you got here since everyone else wanted to see me eat kimchi and raw foods I’m full and would rather not.”

“C’mon…one small piece.”

“Fine.”

Chomp!

Anyhow I really got off on a tangent there. These aren’t bad people, and after performing for them the one time they’re cool, but for me the performing has gotten old. Where was I?

Oh yeah so I’m in this old folks club house in the middle of nowhere South Korea eating sushi and various stuff rolled in seaweed when my wife hits me with the most random piece of personal information, “I was born here.”

“In the senior center?”

“Well it used to be a house, but they built this center here.”

“So you were born on this land?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think I’m the first white person to ever come into this building?”

“Yes.”

After we ate we went outside where we found this really awesome puppy. He was totally chill and was all about following me around and being my buddy. It kind of made me want to get a dog. Anyhow that’s about it. Like most family events everywhere in the world, this one was all about eating too much food and then having to endure people that you only associate with because of some family ties…not the awesome 1980’s television show kind, but actual family ties. I’m rambling, and this is a really dated post, so I’m finishing now.

That being said conveyor belt sushi is totally awesome! The price was decent, and for the same amount we would have paid to get two or three dishes at Bennigan’s or TGIF we were able to sample 10 or 11 different dishes. The best deal for me was some manner of lightly grilled tuna, like it was grilled on the outside but the center was still raw as raw could be. Anyhow, there was something almost video game-esque about a dining experience in which one has to grab their food before it goes past them.

After sushi and some beers we checked out Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Allow me to briefly slip into bro-dude territory and say, that movie was funny as shit bro-dozer! Jinhui though so as well. That is that.

I somehow think that making lewd comments about large breasts would be inappropriate now.

Yonhap news is reporting that singer, 유니 commited suicide by hanging herself in her room in Incheon around 12:50 in the afternoon on January 21st. She was discovered by her grandmother. She had been living in Incheon with her maternal grandmother, uncle, and mother since wrapping up promotion of her second album last August. The police report states that she had signs of depression.

I was never a fan of her music, but I was a fan of her. 유니 you were the sexiest thing on television here and you will be missed. Especially with Hooters opening up here. Who are those waitresses going to look up to now? God speed 유니!

The other day I was in the midst of my daily 5 kilometer run (aka balancing on a moving strip of plastic until a meter displayed 5.00 kM) and watching a little television. Because I usually rock out to some sort of tunes while in the gym, I watch something like Discovery Channel (since it has Korean subtitles) or pro-wrestling since I need no sound. On this particular day in question, the batteries on my mp3 player crapped out at the 1.00kM mark. So I actually watched some television.

Flipping through the channels I found the show, Let’s Speak Korean on Arirang. Let’s Speak Korean was a pretty decent show…emphasis on the word “was.” Back in the day the show was actually informative, the host, Stephen Revere was funny, and the presented advanced enough material that I actually learned things. Oh they also had students…students that were clearly better than me. Not anymore.

This new version of Let’s Speak Korean is terrible! For starters the material covered is really basic junk. This is actually the thing that bugs me the least; in fact I’m a little bit proud that everything I’ve seen is so easy. I actually yelled, “HA! I already know that!” at the TV, which got me a few weird looks for the middle aged ladies that were jogging nearby. Also gone is Stephen Revere, replaced with some Korean dude known as Young. Again I don’t really have a problem with Young. He breaks it down decently, but I never drank beers with him so I don’t know how cool he actual is. What bugs me more is not Young’s arrival, but the fact that the lady named Lisa is still there. She just bugs me. She kind of comes off as really condescending. Again this part is not that bad. She was there before and the show was fine. What bugs me the most is the new “student” guy.

This dude is a total moron! For starters his pronunciation is terrible. If I want to hear foreigners speak Korean poorly I’d record myself and play it back. This is a show that’s supposed to help foreigners learn Korean…get some people on there that can actually speak it. But even this is not that awful. I can kind of see the producer being like, “Let’s get an actual rookie. Other rookie speakers will be less threatened by someone who is making mistakes.” More than his inability to remember similar grammar or vocabulary (”Airport가 어디에요?”), his foreigner caricature makes me want to break some faces.

If you’ve ever seen any English language education show on EBS, you know of the “whiteface” for lack of a better word that a lot of the native speakers engage in. “HI!!!!!! I’M WHITE AND SPEAKING ENGLISH!!!! I’M OUT OF CONTROL!!!! ARE YOU READY TO LEARN ENGLISH!?!?!?!” “Yeah Isaac, we’re ready to learn English…stop dancing please.” Yeah, this guy does it too. Maybe I’m just Oscar the Grouch, but I don’t want to learn anything for a dude that’s dancing around like he’s Barney all going, “WOW!!! SO THIS IS KALBI?!?!?!” Forget you Let’s Speak Korean! I’m going back to Integrated Korean with Michael, the foreigner that speaks perfect Korean, but has never heard of bulgogi before. At least he remembers all the grammar.

I should probably put a picture of my lion that I always draw here, but I’m not going to. Yesterday Jinhui and I celebrated one year of being successfully married with a trip to the theater…to watch a musical. A musical called Lion King, or maybe it was The Lion King. Anyhow, I believe the last time I attended a musical was in middle school, and that time I was actually performing as opposed to simply being in the audience. Oh you didn’t know that? It’s true! In middle school I played a cop and a court stenographer in my school’s production of Hello Dolly! I even had a line. But I’m really off on a tangent here.

Back to the Lion King. I’m a rock guy so I can get away with, “This Band was awesome! They sounded like Billy Idol battling Louie Armstrong,” but somehow things like that don’t really work with musical theater. What does work is something like, “Lion King was totally awesome!” Even that doesn’t really convey how out of control the entire thing was.

Some of you out there might have seen this show in the US or China or even here in Korea, but for those of you that haven’t let me briefly describe it. They started with the plot of the cartoon, The Lion King. To that they added puppets, and dudes in elephant suits, and dancers, and some dudes in a mask that looked like some sort of alligator with ram horns that seriously popped up right in front of me when the show began. The entire thing was so over the top, I’m a little sad that photography was prohibited. But thanks to the internet there are a whole slew of pictures are up on Korea’s offical Lion King musical website.

The entire thing was nuts! I’ve seen Lion King probably 100 times at least, due to the fact that someone in my household (other than me) was obsessed with it in the early 90s (I’m not naming any names), but even still I was still totally stoked. I mean there were dudes in huge elephant costumes coming down the aisle next to me, and guys with birds on ropes that were swung out over the audience. It was outstanding! Also there were some child actors. Child actors normally bug the hell out of me, especially here. Every kid that gets put on a “drama” here in Korea sounds like a robot…even when they are playing characters other than robots, but these kids were different. They spoke like normal people, not that halting, “Hi. My. Name. Is. Simba. I. Swear. I. Am. Not. A. Robot…” kind of delivery that every other Korean child actor uses. Awesome!

And speaking of vocal deliveries, the way in which Mufasa and Scar were portrayed or perhaps just my interpretation of their portrayal seemed a little odd. Maybe I’ve lived here too long, maybe it was scripted that way in Korea, or maybe it was scripted that way everywhere, but those two dudes reminded me a lot of the actors in the various historical dramas that are always on TV here. It was also weird the way some of the lyrics were changed when translated to Korean. The song, “I Can’t Wait To Be King,” became, “멋진 왕 될거야!” (”I’ll Become An Awesome King”).

Even if you don’t understand Korean you should go check it out, since it just looks so awesome. The story is easy enough to follow especially if you’ve seen yourself some Lion King before. If you’ve never seen Lion King, rent the video but definately check out the musical. It was deluxe!

So after the show we went to a Chinese restaurant named Ho Lee Chow’s. Ho Lee Chow’s does American style Chinese food, so there’s General Tso’s Chicken but no 자장면. We ordered some set that came with two bowls of hot & sour soup, some spring rolls, Mongolian beef, a platter of fried rice, and some deal that was called Sichuan Special (it was meat, chicken, shrip, squid, and vegetables in some sort of sauce). This was allegedly a set designed to feed two people, but we ended up taking a lot home with us.

Following dinner we had wine and cheese and then called it a night. That about does it from here, I’m going to go now because I want to play the Lion King Super Nintendo game we had when I was a youth. Before I go, there’s one last thing: When we got off the bus near our apartment, we saw a girl with a hairstyle that looked just like a lion’s mane. Make of that what you will.

Ok I just needed to get that out of my system. Today I’m going to talk to you about TV in Korea, but not the fun kind. Or even the non-fun kind that middle-aged Japanese ladies seem to be all about. Nor am I going to talk about the TV shows that are pretty much Super Sloppy Double Dare only they have celebrities doing the assinine stunts instead of elementary school kids. Nope today I’m going to rap at you about the fantastic world of Korean reality television.

Oh I’m sorry, did I say “fantastic?” I intended to say “depressing.” Moving on!

I am completely aware that America has a big chunk of “reality” television, but the vast bulk of it is so over the top it’s not even real. I mean Fear Factor? What’s real about that? I for one have never encountered an event in which I had to eat cow’s hearts…oh wait I did! But still you get my point. The Real World?! Hot 20 year olds living in amazing houses rent free? Yeah that’s real! Anyhow America reality TV of all stripes from COPS to The Real World is largely successful because the characters on it are so over the top and insane, that whatever weird shit you have going on seems completely normal by comparison (”Hell I might not have gotten laid is three months, but at least I’m not nude and being taken to the pavement on COPS.”)

Korean reality television is a different beast entirely. Here the bulk of the reality television features total real people, but 9 out of 10 times these people are in the most depressing situations. They are either physically deformed, poor and living in some dwelling that barely qualifies as a house, or a woman with some sort of problem that requires her face be blurred out and her voice altered for the entire course of the television show.

Even seemingly innocent non-human based programs like TV동물농장 (TV Animal Farm) will fall into this mode and present a story about some dog with two legs, or a cat that a lady found in a mail box and now it has no fur and looks like a monster or a rat or some manner of monster rat.

But of all the depressing television programs that exist here, the absolute worst…or best if depression is your thing is the show called 아침마당 (Morning Yard). The premise of this show is pretty simple. First people come on and sing. Then they are judged by a pannel of experts…oh I’m sorry did I say experts, I meant “talent,” as well as call in votes from home. Sounds a little like the show American Idol doesn’t it? Well the singing and phone-in votes are where the similarities end.

Unlike American Idol, one does not even need to be able to carry a tune in order to win at 아침마당. What you need my friend is a sob story (save for special episodes around the holidays which feature foreigners, and even then a sob story helps). It works like this: contestant (usually a team of two people) come on stage and do some quick talent (usually dancing or copying some popular lines from a comedy show), and then the hosts ask them to tell their story. The story usually involves a parent suffering from some heinous disease (usually some sort of cancer), so they want to come on the show and win a trip to Jeju-do, since that’s what the winner gets, and as any doctor will tell you trips to Jeju-do cure cancer. So after this little story (bonus points if tears are shed), the people perform and the general public now calls in and votes.

I’ve seen this show countless times and can usually tell who’s going to win based on story alone. Sometimes if two people have particularly sad stories, singing ability sometimes comes into play, but usually not. Anyhow it’s probably the weirdest show I’ve ever seen in my life.

I know that back in the United States we have our share of people / animals with problems reality television, but in America these stories are more likely than not presented in an inspirational manner. “Sure I lost my eye sight when I was a child, but now I record piano based pop songs. If I can do it, so can you!” The shows here are more like, “Hey, this is my shitty life. Oh my hour’s up…thanks for coming,” and when they finish the viewer is depressed. Well, perhaps not all viewers, but I’m depressed, and since this is my website I’m the only one that matters.

But it’s not just these reality programs that are depressing. The “dramas” (soap operas) usually end in a depressing manner, as do a large percentage of Korean films, and songs and music videos. What’s the reason for all of this? My guess: Han.