#98. 빻다 -- you're f-ugly

A few years ago, a journalist contacted people of various nationalities, and asked them to photoshop her own face to conform to the standards of beauty of their country. This is the original picture of the journalist. I suppose that if less photoshop was applied to her face, then the corresponding culture has a less rigid standards of beauty. Here are some examples of the photoshopped results by various nations. To see more photos, you can visit...

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#97. Pay attention to your dreams (Shamanism 8, Hanja 2)

A popular myth in North Korea goes that Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of Kim Jong Un and the founder of North Korea, had some special powers. He was able to walk incredibly fast by warping the ground and leaping through the folds (in Korean, this is called "축지법.") During the Japanese occupation, he is said to have crossed the Tumen River ("두만강" in Korean) on a single leaf to fight and defeat the Japanese. In this battle, he turned pine cones into...

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#96. 오지라퍼 -- your business is my business

The Western society has come a long way. When I imagine a peaceful medieval town, I imagine a small community of maybe a hundred families. Many of these families probably had children of similar age, and they probably all played together. Their parents probably took turns providing snacks for these children when they got hungry. If one child was not around for a few days, they would be concerned for the child, and also for his parents. They would...

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#95. On the traditional Korean marriages and divorces (Hanja 1: "혼")

I learned something interesting today about the marriage customs in the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1897 AD), so I thought I'd share it in my blog. Just so that this blog doesn't become just a cultural blog, and so that you learn something about the Korean language as well, here is the Chinese letter (hanja, or 한자 in Korean) that means "to wed": The full Korean name of this letter is: 혼인할 혼 All full names of hanjas are two words. The first part...

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#94. 지리다 -- so awesome that I peed my pants (or worse)

I stared at the blank screen for nearly half an hour, because after such a long hiatus, I have no idea how to start again. I guess I should start by apologizing. With my full-time job, I realized that writing a blog frequently was going to be harder than I imagined. The prospect of doing something on a schedule scared me and although this blog was on my mind almost every day, I couldn't bring myself back to it. In fact, I was too afraid to sign...

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#93. 신고식 -- Hazing rituals

I'm sorry for the long silence! I have been traveling once again, this time to a wonderful small town called Trieste in Italy, situated between Slovenia and Venice. So Slavic influences, as well as Byzantine and Asian influences (because Venetians were traders, the most famous one being Marco Polo!) are everywhere in its architecture and furniture. It is also near the sea, so you get pretty amazing and cheap seafood. One of my closest friends is...

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#92. 삽질 -- killing the time in the worst possible way

Korea is in the state of truce against North Korea. This may sound great, but if you think about it, truce is totally different from peace. It means that a war can break out any day -- given the current climate, it doesn't even seem that unlikely (actually, the Koreans are surprisingly nonchalant about the possibility of war even now, but that's a story for another day.) Anyway, the possibility of war means that every Korean men bears the responsibility...

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