이웃사람.

Yesterday I went to a cinema in 신촌 with some 연세친구 to see the recently released Korean movie 이웃사람...

Wow...

 

...it was exciting... even though it was a tad predictable...

 

...but that was to be expected...

 

...as the movie is based on a comic book...

 

...and some of the scenes in the movie look like they were actually taken directly from a comic book...

 

 

...I have a thing for creepy/violent/thriller Korean movies...

 

...Korean directors seem to have skills with making darker-themed movies...

 

 

My female Korean friend stated bluntly that;

 

'Korean movies depict too much hate towards women...'

 

...at first I didn't agree with her opinion...

 

 

But when I thought back over the most memorable and powerful Korean movies I have seen over the past 12 months...

 

...all of them seem to depict violence/rape/assault/abuse/death of female characters...

 

...for example;

 

1....도가니...

2. 은교...

3. 아저씨

4.이웃사람...

 

 

The movie 이웃사람 (translated in English as "The Neighbor/s")...

 

...begins with a suitcase being found with the dead body of a young student inside...

 

...and the story unfolds when the neighbors in an apartment complex start to suspect that one of the residents is the killer...

 

 

The most startling thing for me in the movie...

 

...was the fact that quite a few people in this community had more than enough information to go to the police and report the suspected murderer...

 

...but out of fear nobody did anything...

 

 

Apparently this is 'Korean culture'...

 

...because many Koreans feel burdened to call the police about criminal incidents...

 

...as an Australian... I find this difficult to relate to...

 

 

...if I saw someone mopping up slicks of blood in my apartment complex stairwell...

 

...I think I would not keep that information to myself...

 

(...that said... it's a movie based on a comic... I won't draw too many social comparisons here...)

Trickle-down effect.

My newsfeed on facebook has been overwhelmed by people uploading posts related to PSY's Gangnam Style since July 15th...

 

...when the song was first released...

 

Tomorrow is the first day of September...

 

...so I am surprised that the Gangnam-style virus is still spreading...

 

...in internet land,

 

...trends and videos don't usually last that long...

 

...they generally burn out after 4 days or so...

 

 

So I noticed that there is a bit of a pattern in who and when people have been uploading Gangnam Style onto facebook....

 

...with over 800 "friends" (mostly people I have met while travelling)...

 

... from the US, Europe, Africa, Russia, North Asia, South-East Asia, South America, India, and Australia...

 

 

... I noticed that after the video for Gangnam-style was released online...

 

...the first facebook friends to post it on the newsfeed were Chinese, Japanese, Philippino, and Thai...

 

...Not Koreans...

 

...which firstly demonstrated that Asian k-pop fans outside of Korea...

 

... are more sensitive to kpop trends than Koreans living in Korea...

After that...

 

...Koreans started catching on... and started to post the video...

 

...and then the Korean Americans...

 

(Photo Source: Vogue Korea)

 

After that...

 

...the video started filtering through Europe and people in Western Europe started to discuss Gangnam-style on the facebook feed...

 



 

Then...

 

...white-Americans started to take note and tag the video...

 

...and now...

 

...over 6 weeks after the video was first previewed in South Korea...

 

 

The video has started to spread in Australia...

 

(yes...Australia is a very big country and has slow wifi... that's why internet trends take 2 years to reach Broken Hill...who's using myspace?)

 

One music video made in South Korea...

 

... suddenly spread around the world to every continent and receives over 50 million views on youtube...

 

 

...the way in which the video/horse-dance spread...

 

...is interesting...

 

...partly because I am Australian...

 

... and I am a little saddened by the idea that in December somebody from my home town might post this video...

 

(...because my hometown has some of the worst internet connectivity  in Australia...and maybe in the southern hemisphere...)

 

 

In an internet era...

 

...the people that access information/news/videos the fastest...

 

... are the ones who will theoretically adapt the fastest...

 

...with Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea boasting the fastest internet speeds in the world...

 

...how can countries compete fairly in the information age... (?)

Customs.

I am nervous...

...as I am supposed to be flying to New York in the next 10 days or so...

 

... and I don't really enjoy going through US customs...

 

...I kind of feel vulnerable...

 

 

...in fact...

 

...I feel very unloved by US customs...

 

 

... I know many non-US citizens such as myself may feel this way...

 

(...and even some US citizens...)

 

 

...I think I have visited the US from Australia three or so times...last time was Hawaii...

 

...I can't really tell if the security checks are getting more scary or less scary since I first tried to enter the US in 2004 for my university exchange...

 

 

I recall that I was grilled in my student visa interview about 'taking flying lessons'... (???!)

 

... at the American Embassy in Sydney in 04 when I applied to get a student visa to study American politics/philosophy in Florida...

 

 

...because apparently the hijackers from September 11 did their flying lessons and got their pilot's licenses in Florida...

 

...which apparently implied that all foreign students applying to Florida universities were going to also ... take flying lessons...

 

...to try and hijack planes...  :(

 

 

I am not joking about this in any way...

 

...September 11 was serious and it caused all kinds of implications for US/international security...

 

 

...but I still felt stressed and uncomfortable...

 

... about being targeted to answer repeated questions about a 'pilot's license'...

 

...that I wasn't even planning on acquiring...  (??!)

 

 

... and whether I had a Muslim sister/boyfriend/uncle/cat...

 

...when I was 19 and clueless and just wanted to study political science...

 

 

Understandably,

 

...most countries have strong laws in place to isolate threats to their national borders...

 

...but...

 

...I feel like I personally carry the burden to prove that I am not an international criminal...

 

 

...whereas ideally...

 

... I think that the nation's security should carry the burden to establish that I have previously committed a crime...

 

... or that there is reasonable suspicion that I am going to commit a crime in their country...

 

 

I have had this problem with security in many countries...

 

...as I travel outside of Korea maybe five times a year...

 

...so far the tightest security checks I have faced were in Hong Kong en route to Israel...

 

 

...and in Tel Aviv...

 

...when I was trying to transfer to Turkey...

 

...If you cannot speak Hebrew and if you are not Jewish...

 

...Israeli Air will absolutely not like you...

 

...I was rounded up with a group of Chinese business men and we were interrogated for over 90 minutes...

 

...Israel doesn't appear to embrace tourism/foreign students...

 

 

As an Australian... 

 

...I should receive a visa waiver to enter the US for up to 90 days or so...

 

...I was concerned about the status of my passport...

 

(...as my passport is not electronic and I have heard that non-electronic passport holders are turned away by US customs, and forced to return to their departure point...)

 

 

 

...so I visited the US Embassy in 광화문 and they explained that it is possible that I may be turned away at customs...

 

...but I should also register an ESTA form online...

 

...which is like a "pre-security check"...

 

*** which you have to PAY for*** (??)

 

 

I have registered my ESTA form now...

 

...but I don't like the fact that I am paying for online security checks to enter the US...

 

... when it is not even confirmed whether or not the US will allow me to enter their country...

 

...it seems a little greedy to me...

 

Bolaven.

So yesterday Typhoon 'Bolaven' started to move over from Okinawa Japan to South Korea...

 

 

...and another typhoon was apparently making its way East to South Korea from China...

So far this week there have been red alerts issued in parts of China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and North Korea...

 

...Bolaven should have reached North Korea today...

 

 

...I am not even sure if there is one typhoon or a group of typhoons coming from East Asia and West Asia...(??)

 

...nevertheless... weather all across Asia this summer has been a bit cray cray...

 

(I don't like the term 'cray cray'... but it seems somehow fitting here...)

 

 

Interestingly...

 

...my home in central-Western Seoul did not get hit very hard...

 

...and most of Seoul seems pretty intact today...(...as far as I can see...)

 

 

...however...

 

...if you've seen pictures of Busan or Jeju over the past 24 hours...

 

...you can see that some areas in Korea were devastated quite severely...

 

 

On Monday night,

 

... at home we had to do some 'Bolaven-prep' to protect our apartment from oncoming winds and rain...

 

...a lot of people in Seoul took special measures to try and tape all their apartment windows...

 

 

I looked out of one of our windows...

 

... and people in the apartments on the opposite side of us had also started to tape their windows;

 

 

... and some Koreans even rushed to the supermarkets to buy supplies in case they were trapped inside by the wind/rain...

 

 

...my homestay sister SJ taped the windows...

 

... then covered them with newspaper...

 

... and then sprayed the newspaper with water to act as some kind of 'coating'... ;

 

 

...I was not really convinced that this method really worked...

 

...but then I saw these pictures on Naver news last night...

 

...so I guess taping windows can help, to an extent... ;

 

 

Here are some Naver-Bolaven photos I found online last night;

 

 

While I shouldn't laugh at any of these pictures...

 

...when I saw the following picture I had to giggle a little...;

 

... one of the small shoe-fixing booths on the side of the road (with the shoe man inside!!!)...

 

... was picked up and swept into the middle of the road by strong winds;

 

(Poor 아저씨 ㅠ.ㅠ)

 

 

I was so bored yesterday... -.-;

 

... as I had to stay inside all day...

 

 

... as my friends/family said it was too dangerous to go outside...

 

...so I stayed inside with some cheap wine and tried to study... :(

 

...super super boring...