Tigers and Cranes

korean males? sex symbol? since when! and how come no one has told me until i came across this article from of all places, washington post?

yes, this phenomenon has been occuring for a while, but i guess it’s big enough that even mainstream american press has picked up on it. if you’re a korean male, it’s somewhat of a shocker… there are women who find korean males attractive? desirable, even? whoa… it’s a crazy world we live in.

now, i only say this since it’s been my observation that korean males, and asian males in general, have been in the bottom of the list when it comes to desirable segment of the humanity. try to see what i’m saying here… it’s quite different from asian women, who, for mysterious reasons are considered “exotic” by the white populace. i’m sure you know the phenomenon… i know quite a lot of white dudes who think asian women are “hot”, and i know a bunch who are married to them. the other way around, not so much.

also, look at mainstream media and advertising… when’s the last time you saw an asian male selling anything? (tom vu doesn’t count). hell, asian men are usually villains in movies or if they are the good guys, usually brainy but nerdy side kicks to a square-jawed aryan looking guy named “gunther”.

when kid’s tv program tries to make itself “diverse” by adding an asian cast member, it will invariably be an asian female. well, i guess this part makes sense, since you kill two birds with one stone. a woman, AND an asian. but still.

okay, so you get the point.

so when there’s a phenomenon such as this where a horde of japanese women are spending ungodly amount of yen to meet with a korean man, it makes me scratch my head. we can all thank yon-sama for this, i suppose. his improbably popular korean drama “winter sonata” hit japan pretty hard, and the impression it made on japanese women seems pretty astounding as well.

here are some choice quotes from the article:

“South Koreans are so sweet and romantic — not at all like Japanese guys, who never say ‘I love you,’ ” Yoshimura said as she waited for her blind date, a single Korean man, in the 50th-floor bar of a chic Tokyo skyscraper.

hmmm…

Entertainment industry leaders in Seoul credit the phenomenon to good marketing coupled with an uncanny response throughout Asia to the expressive nature of the South Koreans — long dubbed the Italians of Asia. A hearty diet and two years of forced military duty, industry leaders and fans insist, have also made young South Korean men among the buffest in Asia. Most important, however, has been the South Korean entertainment industry’s perfection of the strong, silent type on screen — typically rich, kind men with coincidentally striking looks and a tendency to shower women with unconditional love.

double hmmm…
yeah, korean dudes are pretty “expressive”… i’ll give you that.

i realized that this was a big hit when way back, i saw a tv show called “hello morning”(yes, i watched it. i have no shame) had as its “guest” bae yong jun played by one of the members of morning musume. her “ahn nyon ha seh yo” was actually pretty good.

check out the full article here

it’s no secret that beer and i are quite fond of one another. there are, however, interlopers masquerading as beer in japan. now techinically, and legally they can’t even be called beer. the worst thing to happen to genus beer-us since some jerk brewed “lite” beer are happoshu (発泡酒 ).

what exactly is happoshu, and why do they plague the restaurants and bars of japan? well, in order to understand, we must first examine the weirdness that is japanese alcoholic tax system. i don’t pretend to understand it, just like i don’t understand the two different types of alcohol licensing scheme in america… one for beer and wine, and another for all kinds of booze. i guess this explains proliferation of trendy bars and clubs that use good ol’ jinro soju as their mixing base instead of vodka or gin. those clever koreans… they export a version of soju that has less alcohol per volume than the ones sold in korea to skirt the extra tax higher alcohol content would incur.

jinro “chamisul”

back to the evil that is happoshu.

in japan, the tax scheme is slightly more convoluted. there are four classes for beer. that is, based on malt content of a beer, different level of tax is levied at the manufacturer. since even a can of suntory costs close two bucks and a half, almost all manufacturers have gone with happshu to cater to those who wanna drink beer, but don’t wanna pay 280 yen for a can of beer.

so, here’s the rogue’s gallery of evil happoshu.

so what’s so bad about these guys? i mean, they are just beer with less malt content, right? bzzt! some of these are brewed with peas. no, really! the ones that come in pods, you know. and some of them have this other-worldly taste and flavor, which i can only describe as drinking olde english that have been filtered through my dirty socks.

up on a base of a mountain, after a nice soak in a public bath one time, i come out and get dressed, thirsty for a cold one to cool down with. this facility had no bar, but there was a suntory vending machine, so i ambled up to it, put in last few coins i had jangling in my hands, and a robotic arm plucked a can and delivered it into the hopper.

now, i’ve never had a suntory beer before this time, but hey, i’m a beer slut, remember? after downing a large gulp, my mouth urgently telegraphs: “code red! code red! you just took a big swig of monkey urine!”

yuk. inspecting the label, i realize what i had in my hand was one damn awful happoshu. having no more coins, i had no choice to but to finish what’s left in that can, grimacing and cursing all the while.

here’s the real tragedy. i couldn’t even feel the effects of alcohol. but, i did get the world’s most incredible headache, as if gypsies were tapdancing on my skull.

damn, you, happoshu!!

a korean car on the streets of japan is a rare sight indeed. in fact, i think there has been only one occasion when i’ve seen a hyundai parked somewhere. i think it was a pachinko parlor. the fact of the matter is, korean cars just don’t sell very well in the land of rising sun.

although quite strangely, i’ve seen some rebadged chevy cavalier as a toyota in the neighborhood. it makes you tilt your head about 30 degrees to the starboard and say, “what in the hell?”

yes, that is a toyota badge.

now, i have seen some korean products for sale in japanese market, mostly in the electronics. well, i guess there’s yakiniku also, and kimchi, but that stuff is made locally. anyway, i digress.

one can certainly find mp3 players and such made by korean companies like iriver and cowon, but until fairly recently, korean cars haven’t made much inroad on the japanese roads. looks like this is slowly changing, as japan is importing more and more hyundai. hyundai has sold about 2,300 cars in japan, and looks to sell about 5,000 this year.

japan times reports that it used to be that the low price was the sole drawing point of korean vehicles, but it seems that now korean cars are being perceived as having solid quality as well. hyundai grandeur, called azera (it means a to z era… really!) in the states is leading the charge. “grandeur”. “azera”. man, come on, hyundai… pay ME… i’ll come up with better names for your cars. howabout… “hyundai hodori” or “hyundai dokebi”? now those are cool names.

sorry. where was i? oh yes. also quite interestingly, in the world electronic goods market, samsung is seen as a more prestigious brand value than either sony or matsushita(panasonic).

this proves one thing. people are consumers, and consumers demand the best for their money. thus far, in many consumer goods, japan has been a frontrunner in such categories. it shows that some korean companies have been doing their homework.

Hyundai Motor Japan, a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Co., displays polished new models in its showroom in Tokyo’s Toranomon district with tables and chairs prepared in a corner for visitors.

In business in Tokyo since 2001, it now sells six Hyundai models, including the top-of-the-line Grandeur with a 3,300cc engine. It is priced at about 3.4 million yen.

“It does not pale in comparison with Japanese cars of the same class in terms of quality and equipment,” a sales representative said. “But the price of the car is about 1 million yen less.”

but, it’s a two way street. in seoul, you can see many hondas and lexuses(lexi?) roaming its streets.

global competition is a good thing.

hyundai equus

from the japan times

as i usually do when i work, i was streaming npr and i heard about this guitar guy who, heretofore known only as “funtwo”, is actually a guitarist from seoul by the name of lim jeong hyun, as revealed by new york time’s virginia heffernan.

my guitar hero has always been john myung of dream theater, a bass virtuoso if there ever lived one. i once saw dream theater in their concert in vegas, and by stroke of luck, i was sitting pretty close to the stage, and i couldn’t tell if john myung had two hands or several.
and while lim might not be as refined in his playing as myung is, he has incredible raw talent.

lim is playing pachelbel’s canon (which, by the way, is the most cliche’d piece of composition universally adored by all the koreans… especially at korean weddings), and towards the middle of the rendition, he starts busting out his near improvisational virtuoso stuff, and i was blown away.

do check it out.

download lim jeong hyun’s pachelbel’s canon mp3 here

one day out of sheer boredom, i decided to take a little day trip to wakayama, in wakayama prefecture. the day was filled with trudging around with me finally ending up in a nearly empty disneyland-esque marina city. the travel brochures sure do a good job of selling this city and its attractions, but as far as i was concerned, the day was a total bust.

what does this have to do with commuter trains? well, on my return trip to osaka, i wanted to get on the fastest train, so i was on JR, seated next to this elderly gentleman in a typical salaryman suit. he had with him a white plastic bag, from which he produces a small bottle of sake and some ikapina (a peanut surrounded by shell of squid biscuit. yum). and as the train sped on its way to osaka, i was mildly astonished as he polished off a bottle, then another, then another, in total silence and with methodical regularity.

this is about the extent of my encounter with a rude fellow train passenger.

the bastard didn’t even offer me a sip.

which is why i found this article in asahi.com fascinating, as it recounts the story of the author who witnesses a fairly unlikely scene inside a train.

A 40-something woman was yelling at a senior high school girl who was seated in front of her, hogging two seats–her school bag occupied the seat next to hers. The woman must have told the girl to remove the bag and vacate the seat so she could sit down. But the girl kept punching a text message into her cellphone in sullen silence, completely ignoring the woman. Soon both their faces turned red, and serious tension filled the train.

generally it’s been my experience that women like the 40-something in the article will maybe glare at the girl or whisper to her friend about the declining morality of japanese youth. not this lady, i guess. she’s full of vinegar and righteous moxie. how did she know the girl isn’t a yakuza’s niece or something?

this being japan, though, the train companies’ solution is categorically ingenious.

It is obviously not only the unpleasant heat that irritates people and rattles their nerves. In a bid to urge train passengers to behave better, Keio Corp., the Tokyo-based railway company, invites the public to send in senryu poems five times a year. A senryu is a form of short poetry similar to haiku in structure.

of course! the first thing i think of when i want to punch the drunk dude next to me who’s drooling is write a poetry expressing my sorrow and injustices of the world. the author of the article submits two poems on his witnessing of the confrontation between selfish highschool girl and the densha vigilante.

A person remains standing/ A bag baggage occupies the seat/ Woe is me.

and,

Just pretend/ Your bag is your boyfriend/ Let him sleep with his head on your lap.

i feel better already.

“osaka bound/ next to a salaryman drinking sake/ i can sure go for a pint.”

from asahi.com

talking about my trip to sapporo beer museum reminded me of the time i ate at the ramen yokocho in sapporo. i’d read somewhere that this is one of the sites that a person must visit while in sapporo.

now, i loves me some ramen, and i don’t mean them instant packs. i’m talking about a big steaming bowl of yellowish noodles with heapings of toppings and maybe a bowl of fried rice besides. they say that best ramen comes from hakata(fukuoka) and sapporo. while i can’t say that i’ve tasted hakata ramen(i’ve only been there to catch the hydrofoil to hop across to busan), i will say this about sapporo ramen. bring your appetite.

i had to find this place, and everyone i asked pointed me to the shin ramen yokocho, one of those newly built pale imitator of the real, original thing. i’m talking about the grungy little alley jam packed with noodly goodness.

let me tell you something… the place is so small that i must’ve passed by it five times before i realized that the entrance to this mecca of ramen is about the size of your average daliy yamazaki conbini store facade.

once i entered, it seemed like there were ten to twelve shops packed side by side, and i couldn’t tell you why i picked the one i did, but most likely because it was the grungiest of them all. hokkaidou being a seafood heaven that it is(try hakodate for the best damn seafood in the world), i had to try the crab and seafood miso ramen… good lord, the bowl came laden with a whole adolescent squid! and mussels, clams, and yes, a heap of hairy crabs(that what they call ‘em!) man, i’m nearly crying as i type this.

i’ll have you know, it was delicious as hell, but i paid the price. a half an hour later, my stomach was doing hoola hoops around my ass. thank goodness for nearby popeye 24 hour internet/manga cafe.

a bit of trivia: miso ramen was invented in sapporo. so i highly recommend that’s what you sample when you are there. ramen yokocho is practically in the middle of susukino district, and like i said, can be easy to miss. so make sure you ask someone, but pass on the shin ramen yokocho. that’s for punks and ramen sissies.

you know, it’s from my personal observation and anecdotal interviews i’ve held with koreans living in korea, the disturbing fact of the matter is, many koreans see future alliance of korea lies not with japan and the u.s, but with china.

usually, when koreans discuss the division of their nation into fairly democratic south and whacky and economically ass-backward north, many blame the u.s. and i’ve always had a difficulty with this point of view. without the u.s. and its u.n. allies, there would be no such thing as a democratic korea, period.

did all koreans fail in history? when general macarthur pushed the commies to the yalu river and had the war pretty much won, who was it that sent hundreds of thousands of chinese “volunteers” to ignite more misery and continue the war, eventually stalemating to near the 38th parallel?

and now many koreans see this country that without provocation invaded korea as their benefactor? what the hell is wrong with you, korea?

here’s an interesting article i found via lost nomad.

that bastion of journalistic integrity, “ohmynews”, has published an article by some charlatan chinese “researcher” as to why korea must abandon the u.s. and embrace china as its main ally. lost nomad was right. i almost lost my lunch after reading bullshit this guy spouts.

There are some lawmakers in South Korea who believe Korea should make a strategic partnership with China over America in the 21st century.

They are correct. In the 21st century, Korea needs to come closer to China. First, China and Korea share common interests that are larger than those between Korea and the U.S.

In East Asia, America just wants to maintain its hegemonic order. The U.S. has little regard for stability, prosperity and common development in the region. The main reason is that essentially the U.S. itself isn’t located in the region. On the other hand, China pays closer attention to these issues than the U.S. does.

oh, right. american “hegemonic order”. china would never do such a thing. what with china’s saber rattling with taiwan, annexation of tibet, and continual clash with japan over spratly islands and incursion of japanese airspace with its jets, i think it’s pretty ironic and a case of throwing stones in a glass house.

Could you talk of China’s regional strategy surrounding the Korean peninsula?

China’s regional strategy is essentially beneficial to Korea. America’s stance [against the unification] doesn’t benefit Korea. It is very clear which side is more beneficial to South Korea. Besides, the U.S. is behind Japan’s becoming not just an economic power, but now also its growing military might.

American support of Japan to become a military power gravely damages the interests of South Korea and China. A newly-armed Japan’s aggression target, first, will be Korea and then China. There is a clear difference of interest between China and America on it. Choosing America, South Korea will merely become its scapegoat.

what the hell? japan will threaten china with its military? japanese aggression? let’s see, how many countries has japan militarily threatened in the past 60 years… hmm… zero. how many countries has china invaded? at least two, by my count, korea and tibet. i think this is a thinly veiled threat of chinese military agression strategery. why are they assuming japan and the u.s. has any interest in regional war in east asia? answer, they don’t. china, on the other hand, is pouring what it earns in cheap knicknack they sell in wal-mart to fund one of the largest military buildups in history. what are they preparing for?

In case of war, America will support Japan, not Korea?

Last Sunday, I met some lawmakers from the United States who were visiting Beijing. I asked them: “If there were a war between Korea and Japan, which side would you support?” They said they wouldn’t take a side.

“Not taking a side” fundamentally hurts Korea’s interest. Practically, Japan’s military power is number two in the world, after that of the U.S. Then, America’s “no engagement” will encourage the hawkish politicians in Japan to be more aggressive toward Korea.

If there is a dispute between China and Japan, America will also support Japan, although they wouldn’t say it publicly.

In economy, politics, security and culture, in all these areas, Korea and China have more things in common than it has with the U.S. So, my most important point is that in the 21st century, Korea’s strategic choice should be China, not America.

bahahahaha! japan is number two militarily after america? that’s a good one.
quick check on wiki produces this result

china spent about 81 billion in 2005, ranking number two in the world after america. japan spent about half as much, 44 billion, ranking 5th after russia and france.

oh, and yes, and which country would the u.s. support in a war between japan and china? wow, good guess, dumbass. gee, maybe the u.s. would support japan because your country is… COMMUNIST?

it saddens me to say it, but the chinese guy is probably right about one thing. what with idiots running korea right now, chances are that yes, in the near future korea will once again become buddy buddy with china while spurning its long time ally, the u.s.

wake the hell up, korea.

from ohmynews

“gyaru” (ギャル) or “gal” are these particular people that tend to congregate in shibuya, wearing platform boots that would shame that pimp from “i’m gonna git ya sucka”, with crazy tan and well, make up called “lame”. fortunately, that’s their main haunting ground, and very few such girls can be seen in other parts of japan, e.g., hanshin region.

here are two such girls:

big deal, right? i mean, i’m sure you’ve seen countless photos of such young ladies. okay, how about this one?

and this one?

eagle-eyed reader may notice that the buildings in the background are korean. yes, this is in fact, korea, and the gyaru are… koreans as well.

apparently there is a “circle” in korea that has as its members korean girls that dress up like gyaru… whether this is a positive or negative trend, i’ll let you decide.

i posted earlier i only pretty much enjoy pranks that crank the humiliation and pain threshold to 11. that’s why when my buddy mike z. sent me this video, it obviously makes the cut.

i recognize some of these dudes in the video… aren’t they from utaban? anyway, these men must recite a tongue twister, and failing that, they must pay the price. well, more specifically, their crotch must pay a price. men, watch if you dare… it is painful.

from glumbert.com

lo! what is this, american political wonk george f. will writes an op-ed piece about the contentious issue of yasukuni visits by the prime ministers of japan.

i agree with his point, that is, korea is using the visit as an excuse to cultivate “victimhood” and leftist ideology.

Leftist ideology causes South Korea’s regime to cultivate victimhood and resentment of a Japan imagined to have expansionism in its national DNA.

okay, i agree. but at the same time, he also has issuses with class a criminals enshrined within.

It would be helpful if Abe would discontinue visiting Yasukuni. He could cite the fact, learned last month, that Emperor Hirohito, who died in 1989, stopped visiting it because he strongly objected to the war criminals’ enshrinement.

well, so there it is. even the emperor isn’t keen on yasukuni because of 14 class-a war criminals that share the shrine with the war deads.

i’ll say this. japanese prime ministers can and should do whatever it wants in regards to visiting yasukuni. and korea has the right to shred japanese flags on its own soil or whatever. but visiting a shrine that also honors war criminals is just in poor taste.

what depresses me is blogs out there that have no problem with a leader of country paying respects in a place that enshrines war criminals.

from washington post