One of my mom’s friends is a Korean woman in her 70s who lives in Europe.
On a visit to Korea, she was inevitably asked about her children.
“Well,” she answered, trying to sound modest, “my son is a lawyer, and my daughter is a pediatrician.”
In relating this encounter to my mom, the Korean woman says:
“They like to hear that, right?”
It turns out she made the whole thing up (including grandchildren).
Am I the only one who thinks this might be a hoax?
Various sources report that a South Korean couple became so addicted to an online video game that they allowed their 3-month-old infant to starve to death, while nurturing their “virtual” child in a video gaming parlor.
Here’s why I’m not 100% convinced that this is a real story:
Time will tell, I guess.
I used to think that white parents want their kids to be happy, and Korean parents want their kids to be doctors.
Now that I’m older, I realize that Korean parents also want their kids to be happy.
It’s just that Korean parents can’t conceive of how their kids can be happy if they’re not doctors.
Mr. Kotter he’s not.
South Korean math teacher Woo Hyung-chul’s teaching methods include cursing at his students and hitting them with a shovel.
But because it’s South Korea, his students love him. According to the Korea Times:
Students who gave up on math call him a “messiah” for redeeming them from the deep, dark valley of hopelessness and a state of utter lack of motivation.
How do you say “Stockholm syndrome” in Korean?
In a gym class in Canada, a white teenager taunts a 15-year-old Korean kid with racial epithets and gives him a bloody lip.
The Korean kid, it turns out, is the son of a Tae Kwon Do master. Following his father’s advice, he defends himself with his left (i.e., his weaker) hand. Unfortunately, even using his left hand, he manages to break the bully’s nose.
The police arrest the Korean kid and charge him with assault. The Korean kid, who (surprise!) is a straight-A student, is suspended. None of the authorities express any interest in anything the white bully may have done to provoke the punch in the nose. The Korean kid’s family considers moving to another city out of fear that they are going to be the targets of retribution.
But here’s the amazing part.
When they see how the system is treating the Korean kid, the entire student body (300+) walks out of school in protest. They carry signs calling for an end to racism and bullying. Passing cars honk their horns in support.
The Korean kid is still suspended. But it looks like the assault charges are going to be dropped.
And who knows? Maybe the authorities will finally take a look at that white bully.
You go, Canada!
Rain (the Korean pop star, not the weather) arrived in Hawaii on Sunday to defend himself in a lawsuit arising out of the cancellation of a concert there in 2007.
Without a trace of irony, the local press reports that at the airport Rain was greeted by dozens of fans (presumably the same 75 people who bought tickets for the 2007 concert), at least one of whom was in his 70s.
How expensive is it to develop a Broadway musical? Apparently, it’s so expensive that it’s actually worth it to translate the entire show into Korean and do an out-of-town tryout in Seoul.
I give you: Deu-rim-geol-jeu (aka Dreamgirls)!
Believe it or not, after the kinks are worked out, the producers are going to translate the show back into English and bring it to New York, with an American cast. (Sorry, Koreans, but it looks like you’re going to have to wait a little longer for your big break on the Great White Way…)
In today’s news: Korean pop star Rain is expected to testify in a Honolulu courtoom in a civil trial arising out of the cancellation of a 2007 Hawaiian concert.
In other news: there’s a Korean pop star named Rain.
In an amusing twist, one of the potential jurors in the civil trial was excused because he was a Rain fan. I mean, come on, what were the odds?
Here’s a Rain video from two years ago. I thoroughly enjoyed it — however, I have the sinking feeling that it’s not supposed to be funny:
Noted Korean actress Ok So-Ri has been convicted of the crime of…
Adultery.
Ms. Ok received an 8-month suspended sentence.
Funny, it looks like Korean prosecutors aren’t going after the pop singer with whom Ms. Ok had the affair. (Although being a pop singer in Korea may be punishment enough…)
Starting immediately, being (1) one of the top golfers in the world; (2) a great sportsman; and (3) female are no longer enough to earn you a spot in the US Ladies Professional Golf Association.
In a first for any pro sports association anywhere in the world, the Ladies Professional Golf Association (the only game in town for pro women golfers in the US) has imposed a language requirement on its membership. All new LPGA golfers and golfers who have been on the tour for more than two years must demonstrate their proficiency in English. Golfers requiring time to hone their language skills have until the end of 2009. The penalty for failure to comply? Suspension from the tour.
The LPGA insists that the language requirement is not targeting any specific group of players — although, just as luck would have it, the top tier of US women’s golf is being rapidly taking over by (surprise!) Asian women. Oh, those wacky Koreans — always causing trouble!
Libby Galloway, the LPGA Tour’s deputy commissioner, who I venture to guess will explain to anyone who cares to ask that she’s not a racist and that some of her best friends are hard-working Orientals, offers this unspeakably lame justification for the policy:
“For an athlete to be successful today in the sports entertainment world we live in, they need to be great performers on and off the course, and being able to communicate effectively with sponsors and fans is a big part of this.”
Gosh, someone better get an interpreter to explain that to Yao Ming — I guess that’s what’s been holding him back.
But wait — there’s more! Guess who gets to decide whether a player’s English is good enough? Yep. The LPGA. All foreign players are now at the mercy of an army of self-important tour officials, any one of whom may have a problem with foreigners (other than Annika Sorenstam — they all love Annika Sorenstam).
By the way, the LPGA tour includes a number of events in foreign countries (including Korea). Funny — the LPGA isn’t requiring any of its English-speaking members to learn any of those languages. You’d almost think the LPGA was governed by a bunch of hypocritical, racist jerks, who are appalled that the lily-white game of golf is being taken over by Asians.
But I’m not anti-LPGA. Heck, some of my best friends are LPGA…
