New Documentary About Bullying

Bullying has always been a problem.  Every culture at every point in time has had bullies who intimidate and pick on others to get what they want or feel better about themselves.  I was lucky enough to escape my childhood without being the target, but I was easily a bystander and watched other beings picked on by the bullies of my childhood schools.  The problem with kids is they always believe that they are the only one, and they cannot grasp the world waiting for them beyond today.  It gets better...

I saw this plea on facebook from Ellen to get the rating changed of an upcoming documentary about bullying.  It got an "R" rating for strong language (such bullshit) while on-screen sex and violence in movies like Twilight get the PG-13 pass.  All of the language in the film is in context and has an educational purpose I'm sure.

And here is the trailer for the film.  Korea has plenty of its own problems with bullying.  I really do think that bullying is not new, nor is it getting worse.  I think just that technology and the internet allows for people for the first time to see bullying of children on cell phone cameras and then easily shared over the internet.  Imagine the terrible things people could have watched if everyone in the deep south in the 1960s and 1970s had iphones with HD cameras.

 

Eat Your Kimchi recently also did a video about their experience with bullying.  I have always taught elementary school, and I'm sure it still exists, but I imagine it is not as bad as students at the middle and high school levels.

TSA Security Made Miss USA Cry

I personally have not flown back to the United States in the last two years... but I am dreading the day I will have to go through security and get my nut sack pat down.

The full body scanners take a full body image of your front and back.  All of your bio-metric specifications are then recorded on a computer.  The government claims they do not keep this information... but the government does not have the best record of being honest about respecting the privacy of Americans (or non-Americans passing through our airports).  Another reason is money.  These machines are very expensive and former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff personally is profiting from the sales of machines he says are absolutely essential to preventing terrorist attacks.

Now, in order to persuade people to willingly stand in line and use the full body scanners to get a naked picture taken of them, the TSA has invented a pat down procedure more invasive and offensive than any regular police pat down.  TSA employees have to perform a procedure to be invasive and to make the person feel uncomfortable.  They have to otherwise nobody would ever choose to go through one of the full body scanners, thus making them pointless.  It is a comfort battle for passengers between the lesser of two evils.

Miss USA 2003 Susie Castillo is a frequent flyer and recently passed through the Dallas Airport and felt like TSA went too far.  We need more celebrities to make these videos and speak out, because nobody listens when average people complain...

Susie then went on the today show.  She made some great points.  How come these TSA screening procedures are not being used at the White House or the Pentagon?  If this is the best way to screen and catch terrorists, why is it only happening in airports and not all government buildings?  What about foreign airports?  They have other methods that have worked for them just fine.  There is no evidence that the TSA enhanced pat downs do anything to protect passengers more than metal detectors, behavioral profiling, and dog units.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Is Time Magazine's Top 100 a Joke?

Is real news not getting covered by Time Magazine when they spend their time and resources to print subjective lists of famous people?  Last month Korean netizens flooded Time Magazine's website with votes to make sure for the third time in the last couple years Rain was ranked number one by online votes as the world's most influential person.

Are pop stars like Rain and Justin Bieber really deserving of being one of the hundred most influential people on the planet?  Are they really influential?  Or are they just popular and people just love reading lists.

EYK's Box Folding Video and Waygook Home Tour

This is possibly one of my favorite videos ever posted by Simon and Martina from Eat Your Kimchi and all that is is just a guy boxing some funny junk.  Simon decided to video tape the guy boxing up a prize for a blog viewer and it is fascinating to watch.

They also gave a tour of their home where they film most of their videos. I was very surprised at how small it was, but they obviously make the most of the space they have.  It is awesome of them to be so open and willing to show us everything they have.

Cool HD Time Lapse Video

I love this kind of stuff.  The footage is by Terje Sorgjerd.  Just stunning to look at...

The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

and...

The Aurora from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

Rain Ranked #1 Again on Time 100 Poll

And my fifth graders tell me that Rain isn't really popular anymore... I guess Korean netizens did this as a show of force and ganged up on this online poll to make Korea look important in the world.

Additionally, since a Taiwanese actor came in second on the poll, there was probably a big online rivalry happening to win this that went way over everyone else's head.

Source Times News Feed:

He's done it again, and we're not surprised. 

Korean pop star Rain has won the top spot in the TIME 100 poll, in which we asked readers to rank who they think are the world's most influential people. By the time the poll closed Thursday night, he had garnered 406,252 "influential" votes and 33,813 "not influential" votes. This is certainly not the first time Rain has taken the top spot; he won in 2006 and 2007, and placed in second in 2008. Coming in a distant second this year was Jay Chou, Taiwanese star of The Green Hornet, getting 207,239 "influential" votes. Rounding out the top three was Britain's Got Talent phenomenon Susan Boyle with 151,324 "influential" votes. The top-ranking American on the list was Beyoncé, coming in fifth.

Second place finisher, Jay Chou, was the runner-up and only got about half as many votes... So, those crazy Korean netizens went a little over-kill.

Source:

Rain garnered 406,252 votes in the online poll to rank No. 1 among 203 candidates, Time magazine said on Friday. He also previously placed first in 2006 and 2007, and in 2006 he was shortlisted to the final Time 100 and walked down the red carpet for the ceremony.

Taiwanese actor and singer Jay Chou was the runner-up on the latest list with 207,239 votes, followed by "Britain's Got Talent" sensation Susan Boyle. U.S. pop star Beyonce came in sixth, and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange 11th. U.S. President Barack Obama ranked 46th.

Time is preparing its final 100 list based on the online poll and its own selection process. Last year, Olympic figure skating champion Kim Yu-na was named to the final 100.

And NMA TV has it covered...

Here is the first time I ever heard of Rain, when Stephen Colbert called him out for beating him in the Time 100 poll in 2006.

Korean Public School Cafeteria Talk

I do not generally like to disparage my school or coworkers (because they are amazing), but I thought there were some good lines in this latest text to type video by a disgruntled NEST lampooning Korean absurdities.

One of my top complaints of working in a Korean public school are mandatory school events that require me to stay past 4:30 and nobody tells me about them about them until the day of.  Sometimes it is a volleyball game.  Sometimes it is a staff retreat.  Sometimes it is a welcome dinner.  Regardless, I can NEVER get my coteachers to tell me when these will happen until the day they happen.

Now, I am not married, but I have a girlfriend and friends and frequently do have plans in my evenings.  I do not have kids, but someday I might and many of my coworkers do.  How can it be that "Korean culture" includes planning staff dinners and retreats that require mandatory unpaid overtime and nobody is allowed to know about them until the day of?  It is infuriating...

The 10 Worst Chants/Songs/Story Time/Role Plays of the Old Public Elementary School English Curriculum

If you have in the past taught English at the elementary school level in South Korea, then you are probably familiar with the textbook characters Jinho, Nami, Mrs. Smith, Peter, Joon, and Ann.  Millions of South Korean children over the last decade have learned English from this text book series and it was finally changed this year to an updated version designed for three hours of English instruction a week instead of two hours a week.

The expressions, vocab, and 98% of all the grammar in these books was acceptable. The problem with these books was the production value and quality of the videos. There were also some awkward cultural moments and just bizarre choices made for settings and situations. The accompanying CD-ROM for the books looked like it was best designed to run on Windows 98, and here it was still being used in 2010.  The main dialogues were pretty good and had nice animation (see here and here).  Some of the songs were decent as well, but just about all of the chants, role plays and story time activities in the text books were worthless.

I already posted last month the ten worst dialogues (look and speak 2).  It received a lot of interest and several people asked if I could post some of the other content from the CR-roms.

South Korea prides itself on how much of a priority they have on investment in education. The teachers here are excellent, classrooms have no shortages of supplies, lots of useful technology available, new English classrooms and language learning facilities, etc. But the problem was that for nearly a decade everything revolved around these horrible, horrible textbooks.

These are the worst 10 chants, songs, story time activities, or role plays of the 5th and 6th grade curriculums:

#10 - Grade 5, Ch 15 - Role Play "Dude, wanna join the band?"

#9 - Grade 6, Ch 8 - Let's Chant "Asian people actually say ping-pang-pong?"

#8 - Grade 5, Ch 9 - Role Play "Nero's pencil is huge."

#7 - Grade 5, Ch 4 - Let's Chant "Can a tower be beautiful?"

#6 - Grade 6, Ch 9 - Story Time "Peter Pan was an excellent ice skater."

#5 - Grade 5, Ch 12 - Let's Chant "Kids love being kept overnight at the future house."

#4 - Grade 6, Ch 12 - Role Play "Jack's such a good bucket holder."

#3 - Grade 6, Ch 14 - Role Play "Snake snubs Prince."

#2 - Grade 6, Ch 14 - Song "I shower and sleep with my shoes on."

#1 - Grade 6, Ch 1 - Role Play "Uganda knows good fashion!"

Creepy Classroom Pledge Scene in Homefront

Homefront is a recently released video game that takes place in the not too distant future and North Korea has become the most powerful nation on Earth and has conquered the United States.  The premise of the game is that you are a resistance fighter in America trying to expel the North Korean occupiers.

Here is a creepy Easter Egg clip you can find in the game.

If you want a Korean's opinion of this game, check out Ask the Korean.  Here is the backstory trailer for the game.

Patriotic Teen Fails Spanish

This is satire of course, but I cannot help but feel like there is some truth in this.  I am American, and I had to take Spanish in high school and remembering a lot of classmates saying things like, "Why don't they just learn English?"

Hispanics in America are the fastest growing minority at 16%.  Now, 45 million Americans speak it as their first or second language with an additional 6 million students in America studying Spanish, making the USA the world's largest Spanish speaking country second only to Mexico (and just ahead of Spain).  That's fun to think about.

Most Bizarre ESL Workout Video Ever

This is not new to the internet (and the video looks like it is from the 90's), but it is new to me.  This is one of the weirdest things I have ever seen.  Is this video suppose to be preparing health-conscious Japanese business women for taking trips to crime ridden English speaking countries?

My Questions Get Answered About EatYourKimchi

Simon and Martina of Eat Your Kimchi were on an episode of Heart to Heart on Arirang TV a couple weeks ago.  I guess now I am only one of about 85,000+ people who follow their blog regularly.  But I have been watching their videos weekly for the last two years and I have always had a couple questions about them floating around in the back of my head.  This interview answered them all and was a pleasure to watch (and a pleasure to see the NEST blogosphere get some positive viewing time).

It is obvious from the video that the interview is targeting Korean housewives looking to practice their English, but this interview was well done.  Check it out if you are curious what these two are planning for their future.

Korean-American Version of 'Jersey Shore' Coming Soon

After the runaway success of MTV's highest rated program of all time, Jersey Shore, it was only a matter of time before other programs were created to exploit the lowest achieving members of other ethnic communities in America.  It looks like this group of Korean Americans will be given a national platform to showcase Korean (or just Korean-American) culture.  The show was having trouble getting picked up by a network but it has been reported that they have been picked up and an announcement is coming soon.

I can't wait for Korean netizens to get a load of these guys...

and...

I will be watching this show...

Arirang World TV Shits on "Healthy" Women

I want to thank The Grand Narrative for posting on this topic and raising awareness of it.  Since he posted, the video was taken down from Arirang's Youtube channel.  You can read TGN's posts here and here.  The segment is an outrage and I seriously want to find the editor who okay'd this segment and punch him in the face.

This segment actually had the audacity to tell these gorgeous women that they should take "more care" of themselves or do "some yoga" to fix their disgusting and "chubby" looking legs.  The photoshoped images of how much skinnier these "healthy" legs should be almost made me vomit on my keyboard.

Seriously, the left leg on the "after doing some yoga" picture is creepy.

One of the worst things about Korean culture is their obsession with physical beauty.  Unattractive people are openly discriminated against daily in every social situation and I have had coworkers deliberately go out of their way to make other less attractive coworkers feel like shit all the time.  It is also socially acceptable amongst my coworkers to talk about the physical attractiveness of other coworkers and even our students (sometimes in front of them).  I always refuse to participate and when Koreans comment about my physical appearance I put my foot down and let them know that is not in anyway appropriate or appreciated.

I can't believe in this segment actually targeted T-ara's Eun-Jung (함은정) and said she needed to slim down those "healthy" legs in order to become perfect.  This is one of the most attractive women on the planet and there is nothing about her that needs changing before I can declare her perfect.  Her legs look great.

Footage of Fukushima Plant Minutes After Quake

New footage found of the Fukushima plant minutes after the quake.  The plant sustained considerable damage from the quake alone before the water hit.

Problems with the American Style of Voting

Having grown up in America, I just assumed that all countries in the world that were democratic had the same style of voting as we did.  In America, we have something called "First Past the Post Voting."  This style of voting has created the domination of a two-party system for our entire nation's history.  I did not learn of alternative voting methods and systems of government until I took a comparative world politics class in college.  I would love to see some innovation or change in America politics, but our federal system makes it nearly impossible to amend our Constitution.  Even so, because of the dominance of the two parties, neither support on the state or local level new ideas of voting that would challenge their dominance.

A guy named C. G. P. Grey made an awesome video explaining why so many people in America either do not care about politics or reluctantly vote but still resent only ever having two options to choose from.

On his blog he mentioned that if people liked or commented on his video, he would make more videos about politics in the animal kingdom.  So, check him out and bump his video.

North Korea Sends $500,000 in Aid Relief to Japan

This makes for a strange headline.  First, where did North Korea get that money?  Isn't a significant percentage of their population starving right now?  Second, doesn't North Korea still hate Japan for that whole occupation period that started a hundred years ago?  Isn't Japan a strategic ally of the United States, their sworn enemy?

Source:

SEOUL, March 24 (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has sent half a million dollars to aid Korean expatriates in Japan after the devastating earthquake and tsunami, Pyongyang's official news agency said on Thursday. 

Decades of tightly controlled economic policy that has seen North Korea channel much of its scarce resources to arms development has left the country acutely short of cash although its leaders continue to live lavishly, according to South Korean news reports. Food is also reportedly scarce. 

Japan, formerly Korea's colonial master, is frequently lambasted as a "war monger" in North Korea's state-controlled media along with South Korea and the United States. 

"Leader Kim Jong-il sent (a) relief fund of 500,000 U.S. dollars to Korean residents in Japan who suffered from the killer quake and tsunami happened there," KCNA news agency said.
Half a million U.S. dollars is equivalent to the annual average income earned by 520 North Koreans in all of 2009, according to Bank of Korea data. 

U.N. sanctions in 2009 imposed for its nuclear and missile tests that defied international warnings have further cut into North Korea's finances, choking off much of its lucrative arms trade. 

The North's Red Cross has separately sent $100,000 in disaster relief for its residents in Japan, KCNA said. (Reporting by Jack Kim, editing by Miral Fahmy)

The answer to why is that this money is going to the Korean Zainichi living in Japan.  They are the ethnic Koreans living in Japan who remain loyal to North Korea.  Their numbers are somewhere in the 600,000 range and they are mostly concentrated in the urban areas of Tokyo and Osaka.   More than one hundred years ago colonial Japan annexed the Korean peninsula.  Then, for more than fifty years they kidnapped and enslaved Koreans and forced them to relocate to Japan.  The Zainichi are the decedents of these former forced laborers, many of whom are third or fourth generation.  North Korea financially supports many of their schools and community centers and this relief money is meant for them.

If you do not know about the Korean Zainichi living in Japan, Al Jazeera English's 101 East did an episode about them last year that was quite fascinating.  It is worth the watch:

Ban Ki-moon Should Be Swearing

John Oliver of the Daily Show got his own special comedy hour on Comedy Central.  He seems to think that politicians who do not swear are not trustworthy.  He thinks Ban Ki-moon (반기문) should be swearing a lot with the stuff he has to deal with at his job everyday.  The UN has been dealing with a lot of disasters and conflicts recently.

John made the mistake of saying "Mrs. Ki-moon."  Ban is his family name, not Ki-moon, and Korean women do not change their names when they get married.  So, as a Korean, she has no Western equivalent of a "Mrs." title.

Jokes.com
John Oliver - Real Problem
comedians.comedycentral.com
Jokes Joke of the Day Funny Jokes

KPOP Korral - [Sistar] - How Dare You

Sistar (씨스타) is a four member girl group created by Starship Entertainment.  The group enjoyed much success after their debut last summer with their hits "Push Push" and "Shady Girl".  Their latest hit song and video is "How Dare You" (니까짓게).

In a recent radio interview, group member Bora was asked if the girls were contractually forbidden from dating.  She replied that restrictions on dating was not in writing, but was a promise the group members made when they were signed.  She was then told by Starship Entertainment that if any of the girls absolutely HAD TO date, it should only be with another top star.  lol

This video was banned because there was a brief period in which it looked like the girls would be pole dancing.  The whole video feels a little pornographic to begin with, so it is uncertain if their popularity took a hit or got a boost from this video.  Eat Your Kimchi had a fun review, check 'em out.

"Teacher! What is Difference Between England and UK?"

I frequently have been asked by students and coworkers to explain the difference between England, Great Britain, and the UK.  I already knew enough to answer that question in the basic form, but here is the complete answer to untangle the total remains of what was once the world's largest and most complicated empire.