Peer Pressure

The other day I was teaching an ESL class, and as I watched a 43-year-old Korean bank manager struggle to find the correct English expression for a particular concept in his mind I came to realize that I couldn't help him. He was in the middle of telling the class a story about a a recent situation at his office. The story was complicated and full of bank-y and half-English terms that had me doing my usual teacherly smile-and-nod, but from the enthusiastic stuttering I did glean the gist: the banker's _____(A)________ was mistreating him, and was able to do so solely because of his stature at the bank. My student is the _____(B)_______ because of job titles, but in the real world my student is older, and so he feels more naturally like the _____(A)______.

The best I could do for _____(A)________ and _____(B)_______ after a few minutes of dictionary wrangling and mental acrobatics was Superior and Subordinate. In Korea a peer is strictly defined as someone you went to grade school with, but only those who graduated the same year as you. Everyone else is either Superior or Subordinate, depending on their age, job title, or family position. It is impossible to overstate the influence and importance of these roles in Korean society.

These assigned roles dictate a set of social protocols that must be followed to a tee. Drinking, meetings, weddings, funerals; every social situation demands the invocation of rules that go both up and down the social ladder. Hand positions, eye contact and words must all be arranged accordingly. I imagine the inner monologue of a typical Korean business man out for the usual mandatory drink with his cohorts must be painful:

"OK, Jin-wook here wants to give a toast, he's pouring me a drink... let's see: I was born the same year as him so we're peers. Oh, but I graduated a year ahead of him, so we're not, so I don't need to put both hands on this cup, and my eyes should be down, wait, no, up. OK, let's take this drink. I can look at him as I drink but...or wait! No, he was just promoted, so I should have averted my eyes and turned as I drank! I'm such an idiot, everyone around me is thinking I am disrespectful. Dang!"

Chalk it up to Neo-Confucianism. Yes, it does make Korea one of the safest places on Earth, sure, fine: a store owner can leave crates of beer outside the shop all night in any neighbourhood and the booze will still be sitting there the next morning when they come to open up. It sounds great, but this mindset is also responsible for the insane hierarchy here that creates an immobilizing inequality for women and anyone who finds themselves relatively lower on the social ladder, like my bank manager student.

Of course these rules are relaxing a bit as Korea rushes toward modernization (*cough* westernization *cough*). These old ideas about social hierarchy are slowly but thankfully going the way of the han-bok.

In the West we have a more "enlightened" approach to hierarchies. Age and experience have no bearing on who can and can't be our friend and "peer". Wealth, perhaps, is the only criteria for separation, but otherwise, if we find ourselves in a similar professional or social circumstance with someone twice or even three-times our age, we in the Wise West belly up to the bar and find some common ground.

In my office, for example, I can rap on with a cast of characters ranging from a 41-year-old Kiwi house music addict to an octogenarian ex-barrister from London. Or I can reflect on the themes of the day with a 63-year-old liver-spotted queen from North Carolina, though the last time we spoke his front tooth fell out and I had to pretend not to notice. And I guess the old British barrister did ask me "what the bloody hell" Generation X was when we were working on our NYT crossword the other day, and then he shook his head in disgust when I claimed no first-hand knowledge of the Second Boer War...

But the Kiwi and I get on rather well, despite the fact that he is closer to my parents' age than to my own. We both like dance music, and so, being the enlightened Westerners that we are, we put aside the ageist hang-ups and look at each other eye to eye. Though I suppose we do fail occasionally, like a few weeks ago, when he was regaling a group of us with stories of his many traveled years. Gosh, he's been around, I thought. So I made a joke, asking how many illegitimate children he had scattered across the globe. I guess I figured that I'm young, too young for such things, and that my friends would obviously not be capable of such scenarios either. I was completely forgetting that my friend in this case was twice my age and could very well have two children in every green nation on this earth. He didn't laugh.

Last year, in Halong Bay, Vietnam, I found myself on a junk sailing out of the main harbour into a three-day package tour that promised kayaking, beach stop-overs, snorkeling and cave exploration. There were six of us: three 20-somethings, a male L.A.R.P.-looking feller of about 32, and two ladies in their late 60s. After boarding, we immediately sat at a table and identified ourselves as peers - friends - in this strange place together. We all grabbed a beer and began trading travel stories. The 30ish guy, let's call him Hans, was with the two greying ladies. One of the ladies was from Sweden, and Hans and his mother (we presumed she was his mother) were from Denmark. I thought it was interesting how Hans and his mother could ignore their generation gap and backpack together in Asia. And we all noticed how oddly close they were. Leave it to the Danes to be so... progressive?

We played cards for a couple of hours as the ship steamed on. Outside, the sky was darkened and the temperature dropped - this was March, and it was still a little chilly in northern Vietnam. Soon it became clear that we wouldn't get to do any of the day's scheduled activities due the cold and wind. My girlfriend at the time and the other two 20-somethings - a pair of rosy-cheeked Irish girls - were quite happy to truck on and just enjoy the scenery and the cheap beer. Soon, the older ladies started complaining. The boat was boring, they were annoyed at the postponement of the activities; they just wanted to be dropped off at the next port with a good hotel. They started shouting at our adorable Vietnamese guide (a young fellow who kept checking his phone for text messages from his girlfriend). I was embarrassed and suggested that they just relax. This made them more angry and so ended the suspension of our age gap: "Listen kiddo, when you get a little older you'll realize that in paying for a service we are entitled to receive said service and shouldn't accept excuses. We have rights as customers!"

I wanted Hans to step in to control his mother, to be the voice of youthful reason for us all. Unfortunately, his stubbly face had been stuffed with rich Danish chocolate by the old woman, so he wasn't saying much. A compromise was reached. We would press on to the nearest port, but since it was over fours hours away, we'd try to make the best of our day by taking a pit stop to go kayaking around the famous karst formations of Halong Bay.

When we stopped and our guide started rounding up the kayaks, the ladies, young and old, all decided that they'd be happy just sitting on the deck. I wondered why we had bothered stopping at all, and so it was clearly outlined to me that it was the responsibility of the men, Hans and I, to stick it to our tour operators and make them accommodate us with the planned activity of the day - this thing we had all paid for. Seeing that the wrinkly old hags had turned their backs on our once-friendly suspension of age roles, and that they weren't about to hear me out, I acquiesced.

The guide put Hans and I into a two-seater kayak and shoved us off the stern of our junk. Hans was wearing a micro-fleece sweater, which dragged in the water and caused him to sweat profusely. He was in the rear of the kayak, and he wobbled his 240-pound mass uncontrollably to the point of almost capsizing us. He kept splashing me with his paddle, and seemed to refuse to contribute to our forward movement. I kept stopping, holding the right side of my paddle high in the air and saying "OK, let's do this in sync, it's the only way. Ready? One, two, three, stroke!" but still he failed, and kept right on splashing aimlessly, like he was trying to put out a fire on the surface of the water. His incredible inability to paddle, coupled with his awkward weight and lack of balance made my our leisurely jaunt feel like pulling a dead bull up an out-of-order escalator.

To lighten the tension I asked about his life in Denmark. He drove a Smart car, and programmed computers, of course. I wanted to ask if he lived with his mother, but being clearly in his thirties I thought he might be offended by the question, regardless of the answer. "Better get back," I said, "we have women on that ship!" I was trying to be jovial; to be a good peer.

"I haf jast one wooman," said Hans, smiling with chocolate teeth. Ohhhhh kay then! And so I dragged his carcass all the way back in silence.

Back on the ship we all sat together again and rode out the next couple of hours to the port. We were two 60-something ladies, a 30ish computer programming man-baby and four bright-eyed 20-somethings, and though we were in Asia, where such a meeting should be impossible or would at least have a strict code of conduct, we were Westerners, we were more advanced than that, and damn it we were going to be friends.

So we drank. We talked about our travels some more, but inevitably the conversation would drift into more age-regional topics, like music. The Irish girls and I would jam on for several minutes about such-and-such music festival, and notice that the other end of the table suddenly seemed to be greying faster, their eyelids drooping. So how about Denmark? Blah blah blah. The ladies talked about the traditional European cultural divides, about how the French were so-and-sos, the English were this way and the Krauts were that way. The E.U.-bred Irish girls tried hard to identify, but just gave up when some ancient treaty was mentioned. We tried - we had to - but it was exhausting bridging the age gap.

And then, as Hans and his mother shared a bottle of wine and the rest of their chocolate, they promptly revealed themselves as pinnacles of Western hierarchy-shattering advancement: not mother and son, as we had assumed, but a romantic couple, completely with a slobbery-mouthed kiss that spanned three decades. This glorious example of Western advancement almost made the rest of us throw up, right then and there.

And so on second thought, I think I'll live out the remaining two months of my stay here in Confucian Korea basking in the clean confines of my particular social sphere, a place where I may be expected to be subservient to older and more successful people, but where my peers are truly my peers and the old people stick to their bingo halls.

"I'm Cultured with a Gothic K"

Today's potpourri post title is brought to you by my eccentric and ever-amusing boss.

1) Portrait by a former student:




2) Portrait by the server at our local:




3) A collage by Sandi - album cover?:



4) Chadchad of new Seoul-based party-photo blog thexoxokids.com took a bunch of great snaps at our last party, Underland 2, at Myoungwallgwan in Hongdae on Saturday the 21st:



Click HERE to see our party through the lens of chadchad/thexoxokids.com.

Lee Myung Bak Out! No to U.S. beef imports! (+ happy 100th post!)

There has been plenty of great blog coverage of the recent historic string of demonstrations in Korea and the associated issue already. So instead, here -straight offa my camera and digital voice recorder - is how, along with my pals Sandi and Grant, I experienced, purely as a rubbernecking tourist, the largest of these protests, on the night of June 10th.

Scroll with me now:


Christopher: Grant, what are we doing tonight?
Grant: Well, I'm just looking for opportunities for my facebook, kind of narcissistic series of photos, that I'm hoping to put on there.
C: Like political landmark events as fashion statements?
G: Yeah.
C: That's great, I like that. Sandi, what are you doing tonight?
Sandi: Being afraid.




C: Sorry, Grant, can you explain again? What's the tactic for not appearing American and not getting hatred against us?
G: Hm....no. Ha ha.
C: Oh. Well, his suggestion earlier was that we wear signs that say "hermaphrodites against the FTA." This would garner us sympathy and thus not, y'know, fists to the face.
G: The meaning of the word "hermaphrodite," perhaps, would be lost in translation.
C: Yeah, how do you say "hermaphrodite" in Korean? Sandi, you must know that...
S: I'll check my dictionary.
G: Chick with dick?
S: Check my dictionary!









G: There's a kind of darkening in the atmosphere...
C: Yeah, everybody's in a really grim mood tonight...it's very tense. It's like a mixture of ... uh ... tense political thing and Carnival.
G: And mindless consumerism, as we see here...
C: Yeah, yeah! Those socks are really cheap actually, I might pick those up



As soon as police blocked off the downtown to traffic, hundreds of vendors set up in the center of these normally-bumper-to-bumper streets.


C: All of the candles are made from paper cups.
G: What's the significance of that?
C: Uh...I dunno...Hey! Look at this! Hiptonic Vol. 1, stop the mad cow! Just a sec, I gotta take a picture.





C: Do you guys hear that? What does that sound like to you Grant?
G: Opening day sale at a large department store?
C: More like Battle of Helm's Deep!











S: There're families, old people, children...I was expecting just university students ... that's what I've heard has been the problem lately. There're are a lot of just, irresponsible teenagers who don't know about the issue...
C: Yeah, it seemed like sort of a social calling. People were cutting class and coming to these events, but ... ah ... huh? Yeah, civilized but tense!






S: I don't understand either, there's some signs with the cow, which is obviously "no American beef," but there seems to be another one, with an X through a mouse.

C: Yes.

S: Do you know what that's about?


C: Yes.



S: ...



C: Yes, ah ... the plague. They're protesting the plague... ha! Format 2 megabyte! That's funny. [2MB ... 2 = in Korean, the president's family name, MB = Myoung Bak]
S: I love that that's his nickname.




As Sandi later learned through some adept journalistic polling, people believe Lee Myung Bak looks like a mouse. And so, along with his computery nickname, these guys scored double points. A woman in her sixties was trailing the mouse brigade stomping on the little plastic things.


C: Wow, this really is like a huge rock concert.



...complete with medic stations.


G: There's no way to know how many homosexuals are protesting tonight.
C: It is unclear.



Today was the anniversary of a major student protest in Korea. Student protests in most democratic nations are and have been important, but in Korea they were absolutely instrumental in the creation of its democratic government.



The crowd & C: Lee Myoung Bak out! Lee Myoung Bak out! Lee Myoung Bak out!
G: Is there any danger here?
C: No, just look polite and supportive.




Three of the major press organizations in Korea are unerringly, even obscenely, pro-government. Pictured here are the front doors of the offices of the Chosun-ilbo, one of Korea's oldest and most widely-distributed news papers, completely covered in stickers. Most citizens I've spoken to say the newspaper is an embarrassment.




These flags are advertising daum.net (one of Korea's top two visited sites) 's 아고라 (say it with me: ah - go - rah), which is a sort of online message board. This might seem an odd thing to wave a flag about in a political rally. but in "the world's most wired nation," it is the "netizens" who have all the power over public opinion.



Fed up with their government-loving press, three netizens tell it like it is from the front lines. The internet as the ultimate expression of democracy? I must admit that this was a very exciting moment for me.



G: Many single women have come out here tonight ... hoping to meet a man in this exciting atmosphere.
C: That'd be great, y'know, tell your grandkids ... we met at the beef protest ... "the crowd was protesting the beef, but she wasn't protesting my beef.."
G: Ha.


C: Don't you love these jams? Traditional Korean music is so awesome ... so noisy!
G: It sounds like the break from Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love.
C: Yes!



His associate offered the word "Obama" when I asked about the costume. The sign says, "Americans don't eat this crazy cow."


C: Woah! Check out those umbrella candles!
G: Now there's an example of creativity.
C: The Koreans are a creative people, there's no denying it! Have you ever asked a Korean guy to take your photo? Y'know, you're with your girl and you hand him your camera?
G: What happens?
C: What happens is you get the best photo you've ever seen in your life - you didn't know your camera could take such a nice photo!





C: Oh look! These guys have Lee Myung Bak Out! t-shirts, we gotta get one wherecanwegetone!? You know when you go to a concert and you're totally compelled to buy the merchandise? That's the feeling I've got right now.


C: It's interesting - as we walk around here notice all the businesses and office buildings have roped off their greenery, anything breakable...
G(to Sandi): Is this normal behaviour? Does he always carry that recorder around? Trips to the supermarket?
C: Notice these grapes are on sale today. It's of great cultural significance!


C: OK! We're in Gwangwhamun and it..is..bonkers! It is bananas! Look, look, these people are definitely, like... oh shit! just a sec, just a sec...



C: These are intermodal shipping containers blocking off the road ... you know last time they used busses and they just tipped them over ... hey where did those guys get the beer?



C: OK, we're standing in front of the statue of Yi Sun-shin.
S: Which is blocked by about 15 containers.
C: And suddenly, in the middle of the crowd, dragged by about 6000 people, is all this rope - thick, white rope - and just behind us is a giant stage set up, clearly, by citizens only, they're shouting anti-MB slogans ... and there's an ominous feeling! This rope, we all know, is going to be used for the entire crowd to yank down these intermodal containers ... wow, wow, wow, wow!












The gentleman shouting on the mic was hoarse almost to the point of unintelligibility.


C: So these containers are blocking Sejong-no, which is the main route to the presidential Blue House ... so the crowd wants to tear them down, but the main body of the crowd has taken a round-about route ... down Jong-no, and they're marching toward the Blue House, where every kid in Korea doing their manditory military service is waiting with riot sheilds and battering implements! So I think we'll just avoid that, we're not that hardcore.



C: Oh I dunno what that's about ... those are the track pants of dissent.




Some Kyung-hee University students kindly offered cigarettes and their views on the issues of the evening, which included "I hate English," and "you're so cute."

UNDER_LAND 2_________!!!

DIPLO, SINDEN, A-TRAK and SWITCH....would totally love this party.


Last month was the bomb! Thanks guys^^

SOoooo, why should you go to UNDER_LAND 2?

1) STRICT quality control. No lame jams, ever.

2) The DJs are obsessive music freaks with no lives...if you don't love them nobody will!

3) The night is brand-spanking new, but rather popular! Get in on the ground floor of awesomeness.

4) In addition to the aforementioned DJs we play joints by:

SCOTTIE-B, CROOKERS, FAKE BLOOD, TODDLA-T, EDU-K, BONDE DE ROLE, SANTOGOLD, J.O.T.S., FLOSSTRADAMUS, AYRES/TITTS, BOY 8-BIT, THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTAL, DJ BLAQSTARR, TTC, SPANK ROCK, SOUTH RAKKAS CREW, BURAKA SOM SISTEMA, RYE RYE, GHISLAIN POIRIER....and a little disco..a little rap..and also some ridiculous shit like Harry Belafonte.


price: 5000원

timetable:

09:00 ~ 10:00 : 명월관 레지던트 DJ

10:00 ~ 11:30 : DJ Juncoco ( Electro / House, KOR )

11:30 ~ 01:00 : DJ Marko (Tech / Electro , NYC )

01:00 ~ 03:00 : DJ CPR & DJ Bobizz ( Ghetto House / B'more club / Feel-good Love , NYC & CAN )


03:00 ~ 04:30 : DJ Bad Law (KOR , 명월관 레지던트 )

04:30 ~ : 명월관 레지던트 DJ



MWG on cyworld

What are you wearing?

There are those who see fashion as a useless and excessive self-indulgence reserved for the vain. Oh, well, shit, you're sort of right. But I must ask: at a buffet do you stick to bread and water?

The choice to purchase and subsequently wear a garment is never a frivolous act, no matter how much those nay-sayers and disregarders, those who couldn't care less what is guarding their bodies from eyes and elements (I would definitely include myself in this category, from time to time), would try to tell themselves otherwise.

I am no fashion victim. I don't stick to trends, and I certainly don't spend a lot of time or money on my own wardrobe. But I do recognize the power our clothes have to influence our psychic well-being and communicate our particular take on this life (as a blogger, of course, I am naturally apt to think this is of some relevance, foolishly or not).

Each individual article we choose to wear is an assertion; a statement. There are innumerable variations and possibilities, and like it or not, each day's outfit bears with it a heft of history, reference, place and statement. We all must wear clothes, and in this perpetuation of carefully (or gleefully, carelessly) chosen individual pieces and their combination, great stories may be told and read. The best part of this is the infinite possibility it brings: every story is told in a different way, and every reader interprets every story differently.

As an example: A man is wearing a kelly-green polo, white cotton shorts, white socks and a pair of Keds. Perhaps you see him, with a little imagination, as a nerdy, slightly off-centered golf enthusiast. Maybe I see him as a fashionable aspiring dad-type with a penchant for books and tobacco. Neither of us is right or wrong, of course, making this a pretty safe game. Maybe you see Polly Ponytail over there with her all-over print Aaliyah t-shirt, cut-off jeans and Chuck Taylor sneakers as standard mall fare, but I see her as a goddess, effacing the confines of small-town womanhood and blazing a trail of take-me-or-leave me individualist confidence. Or maybe we don't see her at all because we're exhausted from analyzing the dude in the polo.

This ridiculous sport of fashion analysis is brought to its height in our culture by one of my favourite comedians, Gavin McInnes, who's current project is called Street Boners and may be enjoyed on the internet at streetbonersandtvcarnage.com. One recent diagnosis, of a pair of scooterists wearing sweat-suits matching their scooters' paint jobs, went like this:

"It’s nice to see superheroes finally battling things like me-not-laughing."

Aside from being a means of telling one's story, and a way in which to paint large and entirely subjective ideas about other people and their lives (wait, is this called judging?), fashion can be used as a tool. Wearing a certain thing has the effect of making us feel a certain way; "look good, feel good," goes the adage. But what about look bad-assed, feel bad-assed? Or look stupid, feel stupid? Herein lies my love affair with clothing. For me, clothing has the ability to channel certain moods and emotions from deep within me to the usable surface. Each article is a specific tool used to conjure a certain personality trait, and it is as precise in its use as a mechanic choosing the right wrench. If I wear my short-cut blue blazer I can channel a sort of (faux-) wealthy (faux-) respectability, a sense of inheritance and grace. Add a white cotton pocket square and suddenly the whole affair has been heightened to the level of International Dandy, one of my favourite roles to play. Conversely, some of my favourite moods come forth to play when I wear simply a pair of Levi's 501s and my over-sized black Sunn 0))) t-shirt. The Levi's, with their paint blotch on the left rear pocket, represent tradition, and a no-nonsense unpretentiousness that feels great after a day or two of dandydom. The drone-metal t-shirt, doomy and obscure, is the perfect antidote to my workweek of neckties, and spells r-e-l-a-x-a-t-i-o-n.

Of course this practice of choosing and wearing clothing changes as one passes through life. That familiar game of cringing at ancient decisions recorded in photo albums is a tradition we all know well. Along with keeping a diary, getting prison or military tattoos and carving notches into your bedpost or shillelagh, these records of past clothing choices offer us a tangible path dotted with events and former selves, which we may then reflect upon in the future - nostalgically or cringingly.

I am certain that 10, 20, and 50 years from now, I would very much like to know what, exactly, I was wearing at 26, when I lived for that short time in Seoul city. Borrowing the format of one of my favourite Korean fashion blogs (yourboyhood.com), here, self in the future, was the crap you wore:





#1


tie: miu miu
jacket: tailor made by yaly in hoi-an, vietnam. designed by myself
shirt: tailor made in hong-kong
linen pants: h & m
shoes: lacoste




#2


cap: supreme
glasses: ysl
shirt: vintage, frenchy's in nova scotia
sweat-shirt: vintage, from japan
shorts: uniqlo, chopped and bleached at home
sneakers: converse





#3


bag: levi's
shirt: wood wood
jeans: levi's 501
sneakers: converse





#4


glasses: ysl
t-shirt: american apparel (note: purple, oh shit yes)
jacket: no-name, from hk
jeans: uniqlo
sneakes: leopard print nike court force





#5


suit: tailor made by yaly in hoi-an, vietnam
shirt: tailor made, hk
tie: vintage missoni
shoes: donald j pliner





#6


shirt: h & m
tie: hand-made, -painted, japan, 2 bucks
vest: vintage, hk
pin: rooster, street stall
chinos: uniqlo
shoes: lacoste

A couple I keep retuning to...

You know, You Tube really is something, isn't it? So much content, all there, just for us. Great. There are two musical gems that lie within its infinite megabytes that I wanted to share here today; let's check 'em out:

1) Bruce Springsteen did a solo tour not so long ago, and he played a cover as an encore. That cover was Dream Baby Dream by the band Suicide. If you don't know about Suicide let me just sum them up in 3.5 words: influential, delirious, legendary, heartsmashinglyfanta...



Check out the original song.
And this song, which I will play very loudly at UNDER_LAND Vol. 2 on June 21st.


2) One of American Bandstand's most-requested re-run shows features Public Image Limited performing Poptones and Careering.
Aside from the obviously-fun audience participation, and the fact that this gnarly shit was rocked on mainstream television in 1980, these two songs, especially Poptones, really sit well in the belly of my annals of music-worship.



/ / /

Poptones and Dream Baby Dream share something in common. They are both based on ostinati, which is something western pop music usually avoids. An ostinato is a short musical pattern that is repeated, over and over, and it's a powerful thing. It is my humble assertion that we should all enjoy a little more ostinati, or groove, in our lives.

UNDER_LAND Vol. 1 Report

Success I do declare!
Somehow, against all odds, we managed to fill up Myoungwallgwan and play some genuinely STUPID (but also, of course, awesome) music to a group that went beyond the call-of-tolerance to a level of get-down I really hadn't dared hope for. So thanks! Thanks to Myoungwallgwan (even if we don't understand you and your ways), thanks to Paul Hillier for the support, thanks to the other DJs Badlaw and Bagazi (dope!) and thanks to life.

Here's just a tiny (and decidedly psychedelic) sliver of what the evening offered us: