Monday, January 31, 2011

You can take the girl outta Vancouver...

but you can't take Vancouver outta the girl. 


Proof:
  • I still miss salmon like crazy and once a month splurge on smoked salmon at the Austrian deli, one of the only places in town where you can get this item. 
  • I almost never have an umbrella on me, even when I should. 
  • I can name at least half a dozen different kinds of sushi rolls (Koreans can name, like two). 
  • I point out Vancouver landmarks in most Hollywood films, and piss off the people who are sitting by me, actually trying to follow the plot. 
  • I consider t-shirts, jeans, and sweatpants appropriate articles of clothing to don to work, to much disapproval from my hot Korean colleagues in short skirts and high heels. 
  • I don't think a city is worth my time if it doesn't have mountains or a large body of water nearby (with 37 mountains, a river, and an ocean/sea, Seoul is winning with flying colours). 
  • I consider anything below 0 degrees Celsius freezing cold. 

Monday, January 24, 2011

♪ And the colored girls go doo do doo do... ♫

A friend of mine posted a link on facebox about how Aishwarya Rai is planning to sue Elle magazine because her photos on the front cover and in the article inside the December issue were altered to make her skin colour look way lighter than it actually is in real life. And apparently, a few weeks after the issue came out, people all over India were outraged that this Western magazine would do this to an Indian actress. Read the article below (what my friend posted), then read my response.

http://www.change.org/petitions/view/elle_magazine_apologize_for_trying_to_whiten_indian_skin

My response: "I'm on the same page as you [insert friend's name here]. What Elle did is disturbing but people in India are in no position to throw a big fit about this. People in countries like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka etc., have been putting women with light skin colours in pedestals for centuries. Try to find one actress on Bollywood whose skin colour is dark. Everyone notices that Kajol Devgan has somehow made it with a darker skin tone, but check out her photos. She's still 10 shades lighter than me.

People from these countries have no right to suddenly stand up for Aishwarya Rai and pretend they give a crap about portraying Indian women realistically when they've been on the same "lighten your skin colour" bandwagon since the beginning of dawn. If India has always tried to lighten the skin colour of the women that appear in Indian magazines, movies, billboards, what's to say Elle didn't do it to keep with India's way of doing things? And if Elle did it because of other reasons, i.e., the West's own infatuation with lighter skin tones, then India of all countries, is in no position to criticize. I like my morning coffee sans hypocrisy, thanks.

-End of rant from a dark toned girl who had to live (and deal with these issues) in that part of the world-

ps- I've come across several articles that have stated that the whole "Aishwarya suing Elle" ordeal is a total rumour, which makes this whole situation even more ridiculous. The article below goes into more detail about how Aishwarya is not, and was never, planning to sue."


http://divanee.com/2010/12/27/aishwarya-rai-dragged-into-skin-whitening-row-with-elle-india/



Fun facts of the day:  a) Zenith Bose does not actually drink coffee. 
                               b) Zenith Bose does not actually hate that part of the world. 

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Yeoboseyo?

This video I'm using for my fifth graders this week (to teach phone conversation) is too amazing to describe. So just watch it for yourself.

Friday, November 12, 2010

System failure

Not so smart are we google...?


Hint: Click on the image and check out the 'did you mean' section. 

Brought to you by Miro Bergeron.

Who has also just brought to my attention that google could just be playing a (clever) trick.  

Hint: Actually look up the definition of "recursion."

Monday, October 04, 2010

Why I haven't had a steak since 2009

It has been 13 months now that I've been living in the land of the morning calm, and it wasn't until today that I figured out one of the deepest, darkest secrets of this nation. My inquiry into the matter began shortly after I realized that every time I buy beef here in Seoul, I feel like I'm getting punched in the face. Why? Because in this city (and the entire country for that matter), beef costs roughly $2 per 100 grams, on a good day. Or $20 per kg, for those of you in the West who are used to seeing meat prices in kilograms. The reason they don't show you meat prices in kg here is because if they did, half the nation would turn vegetarian. 

For months and months I wondered if I was eating cows from royal families (royal cows if you will), or cows owned by royal families, or something with the word royal in it. It'd only make sense. I looked for gold shavings in my chucks, shanks and briskets, but alas, I could find nothing distinguishably superior about the beef in South Korea. And this was all Australian beef as well. Majority of the beef you find in Korea comes from the land down under. Meat from cows actually raised in Korea costs $ 200000000000 per 100 grams. Or something like that. I stopped counting after the first few zeroes.

I finally figured it out today though. In my head, the story goes a lot like that of the film Deep Blue Sea. I've copied and pasted the plot of the film, as it is presented in Wikipedia, and adjusted a few phrases here and there to fit the situation in question.

"On a highly-populated top-secret peninsula facility called South Korea, a team of scientists are searching for a cure for Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD), a disease slowly crippling the Korean population. One of them, Dr. 김현주 (Kim Hyun-Ju) violates the code of ethics, and genetically engineers three Korean royal cows, intending to increase their brain capacity so that they can harvest the tissue as a cure for IAD. Unfortunately, the increased brain capacity also makes the cows smarter, faster, and more dangerous.

[...] However, an accident sets off a chain of events that allows the cows to engineer an escape, and flood the internal structure with milk, allowing them entry to target the humans within it. [...] The scientists make the startling discovery that the cows have not just been trying to kill them, but were actually leading them to flooding the facility (with milk) so they could escape into the open country to breed (but not be eaten)."

And so, to this day, it has been an ongoing battle of intelligence between the Korean people, and the Korean cows. The heightened brain capacity of the cows makes it hard for the Korean farmers to catch them and kill them for food. The few cows that they do manage to kill are the ones the farmers find in PC방s (or internet cafes), as these ones ironically have fallen prey to IAD.

And that, my friends, is why beef is so damn expensive in this country.


If you're the weird type that actually likes to read up on stats and research and 'legitimate' news, then you might prefer to read this to get your explanation on why beef is expensive in Korea. But, I don't know why one would even bother after reading this post of mine. 

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

One island, two babies, several cows.

My school had an English writing contest. I was the judge. I got to pick the topic. Ya I pretty much run this school. So this is what I assigned...

You have to move to an island. You can only take three things with you to the island. What three things will you take, and why?

I had to pick the best entry, and this is the entry I really wanted to pick, but couldn't.

First, I will take two baby. One baby is boy and another baby is girl. Because they grow up I will take marry And they had a baby than marry...marry...marry...I will happy. Connect my life.

Second, I will take cows because cow give the milk than baby eat and grow up. and cow give the meat. very delicous.

Third, I will take many coat because very cold at night than I will give babies and cow. Cow is can be die. so I will give.



Epic.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Maybe Canadians are just too politically correct?

A few hours ago, I emailed a teacher in this school regarding afterschool programs. My coteacher told me that this teacher (한채린) is in charge of all afterschool related things. So I sent her an email asking her if I would be allowed to start an English afterschool program for 'low level' students. This is the email I just received-

OK. I'll ask vice-president about lower level English program. I'll let you know the result.
But we already have a program(Korean, math, social, english, science) for retarded students and it'll start anytime soon.
And We contracted another native teacher for a year in the private company program.
Anyway if you want to join the afterschool program in any form, that's good.
I hope that I can help you.


Oh how cultural differences never cease to amuse me.