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male

Student

Leo

14,May,2004

Info has been found (+/- 100 pages, and 4.5 MB of .pdf files) Now i have to wait untill our team leader has processed it and learns html.

male

Student

Leo

13,May,2004

These are the team members: Drewes van der Laag urlLink mail Ruiyu Xie urlLink mail Bryan Aaldering (me) urlLink mail

male

Student

Leo

12,May,2004

In het kader van kernfusie op aarde: MAAK JE EIGEN WATERSTOFBOM How to build an H-Bomb From: ascott@tartarus.uwa.edu.au (Andrew Scott) Newsgroups: rec.humor Subject: How To Build An H-Bomb (humorous!) Date: 7 Feb 1994 07:41:14 GMT Organization: The University of Western Australia Original file dated 12th November 1990. Seemed to be a transcript of a 'Seven Days' article. Poorly formatted and corrupted. I have added the text between 'examine under a microscope' and 'malleable, like gold,' as it was missing. If anyone has the full text, please distribute. I am not responsible for the accuracy of this information. Converted to HTML by Dionisio@InfiNet.com 11/13/98. (Did a little spell-checking and some minor edits too.) Stolen from urlLink http://my.ohio.voyager.net/~dionisio/fun/m...own-h-bomb.html and reformatted the HTML. It now validates to XHTML 1.0 Strict. How to Build an H-Bomb Making and owning an H-bomb is the kind of challenge real Americans seek. Who wants to be a passive victim of nuclear war when, with a little effort, you can be an active participant? Bomb shelters are for losers. Who wants to huddle together underground eating canned Spam? Winners want to push the button themselves. Making your own H-bomb is a big step in nuclear assertiveness training -- it's called Taking Charge. We're sure you'll enjoy the risks and the heady thrill of playing nuclear chicken. Introduction When the Feds clamped down on The Progressive magazine for attempting to publish an article on the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb, it piqued our curiosity. Was it really true that atomic and hydrogen bomb technology was so simple you could build an H-bomb in your own kitchen? Seven Days decided to find out. Food editor Barbara Ehrenreich, investigative reporter Peter Biskind, Photographer Jane Melnick and nuclear scientist Michio Kaku were given three days to cook up a workable H-bomb. They did and we have decided to share their culinary secrets with you. Not that Seven Days supports nuclear terrorism. We don't. We would prefer to die slowly from familiar poisons like low-level radiation, microwaves, DDT, DBCP, aflatoxins, PBBs, PBCs, or food dyes, rather than unexpectedly, say as hostage to a Latvian nationalist brandishing a homemade bomb. In our view the real terrorists are the governments, American, Soviet, French, Chinese, and British, that are hoarding H-bombs for their own use, and worse still, those governments (U.S., French and German) that are eagerly peddling advanced nuclear technology to countries like South Africa, Brazil, and Argentina so that they can make their own bombs. When these bombs are used, and they will be, it will be the world's big-time nuclear peddlers, along with corporate suppliers like General Electric, Westinghouse, and Gulf Oil, that we can thank for it. Gagging The Progressive will do no more for national security than backyard bomb shelters because like it or not the news is out. The heart of the successful H-bomb is the successful A-bomb. Once you've got your A-bombs made the rest is frosting on the cake. All you have to do is set them up so that when they detonate they'll start off a hydrogen-fusion reaction. Part 1: Making Your Bomb Step 1: Getting the Ingredients Uranium is the basic ingredient of the A-bomb. When a uranium atom's nucleus splits apart, it releases a tremendous amount of energy (for its size), and it emits neutrons which go on to split other nearby uranium nuclei, releasing more energy, in what is called a 'chain reaction'. (When atoms split, matter is converted into energy according to Einstein's equation E=MC2. What better way to mark his birthday than with your own atomic fireworks?) There are two kinds (isotopes) of uranium: the rare U-235, used in bombs, and the more common, heavier, but useless U-238. Natural uranium contains less than 1 percent U-235 and in order to be usable in bombs it has to be 'enriched' to 90 percent U-235 and only 10 percent U-238. Plutonium-239 can also be used in bombs as a substitute for U-235. Ten pounds of U-235 (or slightly less plutonium) is all that is necessary for a bomb. Less than ten pounds won't give you a critical mass. So purifying or enriching naturally occurring uranium is likely to be your first big hurdle. It is infinitely easy to steal ready-to-use enriched uranium or plutonium than to enrich some yourself. And stealing uranium is not as hard as it sounds. There are at least three sources of enriched uranium or plutonium... Enriched uranium is manufactured at a gaseous diffusion plant in Portsmouth, Ohio. From there it is shipped in 10 liter bottles by airplane and trucks to conversion plants that turn it into uranium oxide or uranium metal. Each 10 liter bottle contains 7 kilograms of U-235, and there are 20 bottles to a typical shipment. Conversion facilities exist at Hematite, Missouri; Apollo, Pennsylvania; and Erwin, Tennessee. The Kerr-McGee plant at Crescent Oklahoma -- where Karen Silkwood worked -- was a conversion plant that 'lost' 40 lbs of plutonium. Enriched uranium can be stolen from these plants or from fuel-fabricating plants like those in New Haven, San Diego; or Lynchburg, Virginia. (A former Kerr-McGee supervisor, James V. Smith, when asked at the Silkwood trial if there were any security precautions at the plant to prevent theft, testified that 'There were none of any kind, no guards, no fences, no nothing.') Plutonium can be obtained from places like United Nuclear in Pawling, New York; Nuclear Fuel Services in Erwin, Tennessee; General Electric in Pleasanton, California; Westinghouse in Cheswick, Pennsylvania; Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) in Leechburg, Pennsylvania; and plants in Hanfford, Washington and Morris, Illinois. According to Rolling Stone magazine the Israelis were involved in the theft of plutonium from NUMEC. Finally you can steal enriched uranium or plutonium while it's en-route from conversion plants to fuel fabricating plants. It is usually transported (by air or truck) in the form of uranium oxide, a brownish powder resembling instant coffee, or as a metal, coming in small chunks called 'broken buttons.' Both forms are shipped in small cans stacked in 5-inch cylinders braced with welded struts in the center of ordinary 55 gallon steel drums. The drums weigh about 100 pounds and are clearly marked 'Fissible Material' or 'Danger, Plutonium.' A typical shipment might go from the enrichment plant at Portsmouth, Ohio to the conversion plant in Hematite Missouri then to Kansas City by truck where it would be flown to Los Angeles and then trucked down to the General Atomic plant in San Diego. The plans for the General Atomic plant are on file at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's reading room at 1717 H Street NW Washington. A Xerox machine is provided for the convenience of the public. If you can't get hold of any enriched uranium you'll have to settle for commercial grade (20 percent U-235). This can be stolen from university reactors of a type called TRIGA Mark II, where security is even more casual than at commercial plants. If stealing uranium seems too tacky you can buy it. Unenriched uranium is available at any chemical supply house for $23 a pound. Commercial grade (3 to 20 percent enriched) is available for $40 a pound from Gulf Atomic. You'll have to enrich it further yourself. Quite frankly this can be something of a pain in the ass. You'll need to start with a little more than 50 pounds of commercial-grade uranium. (It's only 20 percent U-235 at best, and you need 10 pounds of U-235 so... ) But with a little kitchen-table chemistry you'll be able to convert the solid uranium oxide you've purchased into a liquid form. Once you've done that, you'll be able to separate the U-235 that you'll need from the U-238. First pour a few gallons of concentrated hydrofluoric acid into your uranium oxide, converting it to uranium tetrafluoride. (Safety note: Concentrated hydrofluoric acid is so corrosive that it will eat its way through glass, so store it only in plastic. Used 1-gallon plastic milk containers will do.) Now you have to convert your uranium tetrafluoride to uranium hexafluoride, the gaseous form of uranium, which is convenient for separating out the isotope U-235 from U-238. To get the hexafluoride form, bubble fluorine gas into your container of uranium tetrafluoride. Fluorine is available in pressurized tanks from chemical-supply firms. Be careful how you use it though because fluorine is several times more deadly than chlorine, the classic World War I poison gas. Chemists recommend that you carry out this step under a stove hood (the kind used to remove unpleasant cooking odors). If you've done your chemistry right you should now have a generous supply of uranium hexafluoride ready for enriching. In the old horse-and-buggy days of A-bomb manufacture the enrichment was carried out by passing the uranium hexafluoride through hundreds of miles of pipes, tubes, and membranes, until the U-235 was eventually separated from the U-238. This gaseous-diffusion process, as it was called is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. Gaseous-diffusion plants cover hundreds of acres and cost in the neighborhood of $2-billion each. So forget it. There are easier, and cheaper, ways to enrich your uranium. First transform the gas into a liquid by subjecting it to pressure. You can use a bicycle pump for this. Then make a simple home centrifuge. Fill a standard-size bucket one-quarter full of liquid uranium hexafluoride. Attach a six-foot rope to the bucket handle. Now swing the rope (and attached bucket) around your head as fast as possible. Keep this up for about 45 minutes. Slow down gradually, and very gently put the bucket on the floor. The U-235, which is lighter, will have risen to the top, where it can be skimmed off like cream. Repeat this step until you have the required 10 pounds of uranium. (Safety note: Don't put all your enriched uranium hexafluoride in one bucket. Use at least two or three buckets and keep them in separate corners of the room. This will prevent the premature build-up of a critical mass.) Now it's time to convert your enriched uranium back to metal form. This is easily enough accomplished by spooning several ladlefuls of calcium (available in tablet form from your drugstore) into each bucket of uranium. The calcium will react with the uranium hexafluoride to produce calcium fluoride, a colorless salt which can be easily be separated from your pure enriched uranium metal. A few precautions: • While uranium is not dangerously radioactive in the amounts you'll be handling, if you plan to make more than one bomb it might be wise to wear gloves and a lead apron, the kind you can buy in dental supply stores. • Plutonium is one of the most toxic substances known. If inhaled, a thousandth of a gram can cause massive fibrosis of the lungs, a painful way to go. Even a millionth of a gram in the lungs will cause cancer. If eaten plutonium is metabolized like calcium. It goes straight to the bones where it gives out alpha particles preventing bone marrow from manufacturing red blood cells. The best way to avoid inhaling plutonium is to hold your breath while handling it. If this is too difficult wear a mask. To avoid ingesting plutonium orally follow this simple rule: never make an A-bomb on an empty stomach. • If you find yourself dozing off while you're working, or if you begin to glow in the dark, it might be wise to take a blood count. Prick your finger with a sterile pin, place a drop of blood on a microscope slide, cover it with a cover slip, and examine under a microscope. (Best results are obtained in the early morning.) When you get leukemia, immature cells are released into the bloodstream, and usually the number of white cells increases (though this increase might take almost 2 weeks). Red blood cells look kind of like donuts (without the hole), and are slightly smaller than the white cells, each of which has a nucleus. Immature red cells look similar to white cells (i.e.. slightly larger and have a nucleus). If you have more than about 1 white cell (including immature ones) to 400 red cells then start to worry. But, depending upon your plans for the eventual use of the bomb, a short life expectancy might not be a problem. Step 2: Assembling the A-Bomb Now that you've acquired the enriched uranium, all that's left is to assemble your A-bomb. Go find a couple of stainless steel salad bowls. You also want to separate your 10 pounds of U-235 into two hunks. (Keep them apart!) The idea is to push each half your uranium into the inside of a bowl. Take one hunk of your uranium and beat it into the inside of the first bowl. Uranium is malleable, like gold, so you should have no trouble hammering it into the bowl to get a good fit. Take another five-pound hunk of uranium and fit it into a second stainless steel bowl. These two bowls of U-235 are the 'subcritical masses' which, when brought together forcefully, will provide the critical mass that makes your A-bomb go. Keep them a respectful distance apart while working because you don't want them to 'go critical' on you... At least not yet. Now hollow out the body of an old vacuum cleaner and place your two hemispherical bowls inside, open ends facing each other, no less than seven inches apart, using masking tape to set them up in position. The reason for the steel bowls and the vacuum cleaner, in case you're wondering, is that these help reflect the neutrons back into the uranium for a more efficient explosion. 'A loose neutron is a useless neutron' as the A-bomb pioneers used to say. As far as the A-bomb goes, you're almost done. The final problem is to figure out how to get the two U-235 hemispheres to smash into each other with sufficient force to set off a truly effective fission reaction. Almost any type of explosive can be used to drive them together. Gunpowder, for example, is easily made at home from potassium nitrate, sulfur, and carbon. Or, you can get some blasting caps or TNT. (Buy them or steal them from a construction site.) Best of all is C4 plastic explosive. You can mold it around your bowls, and it's fairly safe to work with. (But, it might be wise to shape it around an extra salad bowl in another room, and THEN fit it to your uranium-packed bowls. This is particularly true in winter, when a stray static electrical charge might induce ignition in the C4. A responsible bomb maker considers it impolite to accidentally destroy more of the neighborhood than absolutely necessary.) Once the explosives are in place all you need to do is hook up a simple detonation device with a few batteries, a switch, and some wire. Remember though that it is essential that the two charges -- one on each side of the casing -- go off simultaneously. Now put the whole thing in the casing of an old Hoover vacuum cleaner and you're finished with this part of the process. The rest is easy. Step 3: Make More A-Bombs Following the Directions Above A Word to the Wise About Wastes After your A-bomb is completed you'll have a pile of moderately fatal radioactive wastes like U-238. These are not dangerous, but you do have to get rid of them. You can flush leftovers down the toilet. (Don't worry about polluting the ocean, there is already so much radioactive waste there, a few more bucketfuls won't make any waves whatsoever.) If you're the fastidious type -- the kind who never leaves gum under their seat at the movies -- you can seal the nasty stuff in coffee cans and bury it in the backyard, just like Uncle Sam does. If the neighbor kids have a habit of trampling the lawn, tell them to play over by the waste. You'll soon find that they're spending most of their time in bed. Going First Class If you're like us, you're feeling the economic pinch, and you'll want to make your bomb as inexpensively as possible, consonant of course with reasonable yield. The recipe we've given is for a budget-pleasing H-bomb, no frills, no flourishes; it's just a simple 5-megaton bomb, capable of wiping out the New York metropolitan area, the San Francisco Bay area, or Boston. But don't forget, your H-bomb will only be as good as the A-bombs in it. If you want to spend a little more money you can punch-up your A-bomb considerably. Instead of centrifuging your uranium by hand, you can buy a commercial centrifuge. (Fisher Scientific sells one for about $1000.) You also might want to be fussier about your design. The Hiroshima bomb, a relatively crude one, only fissioned 1 percent of it's uranium and yielded only 13 kilotons. In order to fission more of the uranium, the force of your explosive 'trigger' needs to be evenly diffused around the sphere; the same pressure has to be exerted on every point of the sphere simultaneously. (It was a technique for producing this sort of simultaneous detonation by fashioning the explosives into lenses that the government accused Julius and Ethel Rosenberg of trying to steal). Part 2: Putting Your H-Bomb Together The heart of the H-bomb is the fusion process. Several A-bombs are detonated in such a way as to create the extremely high temperature (100 million degrees C) necessary to fuse lithium deuteride (LiD) into helium. When the lithium nucleus slams into the deuterium nucleus, two helium nuclei are created, and if this happens to enough deuterium nuclei rapidly enough, the result is an enormous amount of energy: the energy of the H-bomb. You don't have to worry about stealing lithium deuteride, it can be purchased from any chemical-supply house. It costs $1000 a pound. If your budget won't allow it you can substitute lithium hydride at $40 a pound. You will need at least 100 pounds. It's a corrosive and toxic powder so be careful. Place the lithium deuteride or hydride in glass jars and surround it with four A-bombs in their casings. Attach them to the same detonator so that they will go off simultaneously. The container for the whole thing is no problem. They can be placed anywhere: Inside an old stereo console, a discarded refrigerator, etc... When the detonator sets off the four A-bombs all eight hemispheres of fissionable material will slam into each other at the same time creating four critical masses and four detonations. This will raise the temperature of the lithium deuteride to 100 million degrees C fast enough (a few billionths of a second) so that the lithium will not be blown all over the neighborhood before the nuclei have time to fuse. The result, at least 1000 times the punch of the puny A-bomb that leveled Hiroshima (20 million tons of TNT vs. 20 thousand tons.) Part 3: What to do With Your Bomb Now that you have a fully assembled H-bomb housed in an attractive console of your choice you may be wondering, 'What should I do with it?' Every family will have to answer this question according to its own tastes and preferences, but you may want to explore some possibilities which have been successfully pioneered by the American government. 1. Sell Your Bomb and Make a Pile of Money In these days of rising inflation, increasing unemployment, and an uncertain economic outlook, few businesses make as much sense as weapons production. If your career forecast is cloudy, bomb sales may be the only sure way to avoid the humiliation of receiving welfare, or unemployment. Regardless of your present income level, a home H-bomb business can be an invaluable income supplement, and certainly a profitable alternative to selling Tupperware or pirated Girl Scout cookies. Unfortunately for the family bomb business, big government has already cornered a large part of the world market. But this does not mean that there is a shortage of potential customers. The raid on Entebee was the Waterloo of hijacking, and many nationalist groups are now on the alert for new means to get their message across. They'd jump at the chance to get hold of an H-bomb. Emerging nations which can't ante up enough rice or sugar to buy themselves a reactor from G.E. or Westinghouse are also shopping around. You may wonder about the ethics of selling to nations, or groups, whose goals you may disapprove of. But here again, take a tip from our government: forget ideology -- it's cash that counts. And remember, H-bomb sales have a way of escalating, almost like a chain reaction. Suppose you make a sale to South Yemen which you believe to be a Soviet puppet. Well within a few days some discrete inquiries from North Yemen and possibly the Saudis, the Egyptians and the Ethiopians as well can be expected. Similarly, a sale to the IRA will generate a sale to the Ulster government; and a sale to the Tanzanians will bring the Ugandans running, and so forth. It doesn't matter WHICH side you're on, only how many sides there are. Don't forget about the possibility of repeat sales to the same customer. As the experience of both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. has shown, each individual nation has a potentially infinite need for H-bombs. No customer -- no matter how small -- can ever have too many. 2. Use Your Bomb at Home Many families are attracted to the H-bomb simply as a 'deterrent.' A discrete sticker on the door or on the living room window saying 'This Home Protected by H-bomb' will discourage IRS investigators, census takers, and Jehovah's Witnesses. You'll be surprised how fast the crime rate will go down and property values will go up. And once the news gets out that you are a home H-bomb owner you'll find that you have unexpected leverage in neighborhood disputes over everything from parking places and stereo noise levels to school tax rates. So relax and enjoy the pride and excitement of home H-bomb ownership! Is It For You? Let's be honest. The H-bomb isn't for everyone. Frankly there are people who can't handle it. They break out in hives at the very mention of mega-death, fallout, or radiation sickness. The following quiz will help you find out whether you have what it takes for home H-bomb ownership. If you can answer 'yes' to six or more of these questions, then you're emotionally eligible to join the nuclear club. If not, a more conventional weapon may be more your cup of tea, try botulism-toxin, laser rays, or nerve gas. 1. I ignore the demands of others. 2. I subscribe to one or more of the following: Soldier of Fortune, Hustler, Popular Mechanics, Self. 3. Though I have many interesting acquaintances, I am my own best friend. 4. I know what to say after you say 'Hello,' but I am seldom interested in pursuing the conversation. 5. I have seen the movie 'The Deer Hunter' more than once. 6. I know that everyone can be a winner if they want to, and I resent whiners. 7. I own one or more of the following: handgun, video game, trash compactor, snowmobile. 8. I am convinced that leukemia is psychosomatic. 9. I am aware that most vegetarians are sexually impotent. 10. I have read evidence that solar energy is a Communist conspiracy. Myths About Nuclear War Ever since the first mushroom cloud over Hiroshima ushered in the atomic age, a small group of nay-sayers and doom-mongers has lobbied, campaigned and demonstrated to convince Americans that H-bomb ownership, along with nuclear power, is dangerous and unhealthy. Using their virtual stranglehold over the media, these people have tried to discredit everything nuclear from energy to war. They have vastly overrated the risks of nuclear bombs and left many Americans feeling demoralized and indecisive; not sure where the truth lies. Well, here are the myths, and here are the facts. Myth: After a nuclear exchange the earth will no longer be suitable for human habitation. Fact: This is completely false. According to one scientist (quoted in John McPee's The Curve of Binding Energy) 'The largest bomb that has ever been exploded anywhere was 60 megatons, and that is one-thousandth the force of an earthquake, one-thousandth the force of a hurricane. We have lived with earthquakes and hurricanes for a long time.' Another scientist adds, 'It is often assumed that a full blown nuclear war would be the end of life on earth. That is far from the truth. To end life on earth would take at least a thousand times the total yield of all the nuclear explosives existing in the world, and probably a lot more.' Even if humans succumbed, many forms of life would survive a nuclear free-for-all, cockroaches, certain forms of bacteria, and lichens, for instance. Myth: Radiation is bad for you. Fact: Everything is bad for you if you have too much of it. If you eat too many bananas you'll get a stomach-ache. If you get too much sun you can get sunburned (or even skin cancer). Same thing with radiation. Too much may make you feel under the weather, but nuclear industry officials insist that there is no evidence that low-level radiation has any really serious adverse effects. And, high-level radiation may bring unexpected benefits. It speeds up evolution by weeding out unwanted genetic types and creating new ones. (Remember the old saying, 'Two heads are better than one.') Nearer to home, it's plain that radiation will get rid of pesky crab grass and weeds, and teenagers will find that brief exposure to a nuclear burst vaporizes acne and other skin blemishes. (Many survivors of the Hiroshima bomb found that they were free from skin and it's attendant problems forever.) We hope this clears up any misconceptions you may have had. Enjoy your H-Bomb!

male

Student

Leo

12,May,2004

testing!!! testing!!!

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

11,June,2004

Thanks to Yahoo!'s Toolbar I can now 'capture' the URLs of popups...which means now I can show you some cool links to Korean Pop (K-Pop) audio and video without the need to relate instructions like: 'go to the site, click on the pop-audio button then choose...'. So, without further ado here is the link to 24-hour K-Pop urlLink audio and the urlLink video streaming. Enjoy.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

10,June,2004

I had an interesting conversation with my Dad this morning. We were talking about where Koreans put their money. Invariably, they have a lot of real estate and cash. (Cash would include short term investments under one year as well as savings accounts.) The reason? Real estate makes money here. A lot of money. I've seen surveys of Seoul real estate rising about 10-15% PER YEAR for long stretches, even after taking into account the 1997 Crisis (referred to as the IMF crisis here, although it was the IMF that bailed Korea out). Compare that to Korean corporate bonds which fell 90-99% in 1997 and only modestly recovered, and a local stock market (represented by KOSPI, or their version of the Dow Jones Index) that has not gone appreciably above its 1980s high of 1,000 points (it is now about 800 points, see urlLink link ) and you can see why real estate makes sense here. But back to the conversation...I noted that here a 'real big' or 'elite' real estate investor has over 6 billion won (about USD 5,000,000, see urlLink converter ) in properties. Dad seemed a little flabbergasted. 'What the heck do they need 5 million dollars for? They don't need that much to retire.' Maybe so, but there is a lot of risk here too. Take real estate (or any other South Korean asset) for example: if the North toots their horn louder or make a move on the country that 5,000,000 USD is worth about 5 cents. Also, all of it is denominated in won which, during the 'IMF Crisis', dropped about 50% vis-a-vis the USD. Also, if you make a bad investment or some fall victim to a scam--the latest here was the urlLink Good Morning City project--you're toast. I saw a lady on TV who lost everything in it. Her comment (between the tears): 'Now I know what it's like to go from a rich person to a beggar in one day.' If you have one of those, some saber-rattling from North Korea and a weak exchange rate your little nest egg could be almost wiped out. The government has almost zero help for unemployed, disabled or otherwise disenfranchised workers. The role of family is more important here...so if you have money you should help your family, and if you don't then you should go to them first. Thus the idea that more is more. Koreans go all out in most things they do, and investing is no different. Why have one apartment when you can have 7? The urlLink jeonse system supports this as well. You see, if you have a 400,000 USD apartment and you rent it out there are two systems you can use in Korea (neither of which are the Western ones, except in rare circumstances). 1. Renter signs a 2-year contract and deposits about half the market value (200,000 USD) with the owner. No monthly rent is paid, but the owner can invest in Korean Treasury Bills for about 4-5% per year. That's a monthly rent/return of $750. At the end of the term the 200,000 USD is returned to the renter. 2. Renter signs a 1-year or 2-year contract and deposits about 10%-20% of the market value of the property (10,000-20,000 USD) plus some monthly rent of $400-$600 a month. In both cases, if the value of the property increases or decreases the jeonse will need to be topped-up or partially refunded. (Of course I'm using USD in this to save my '0' key and to help 'foreigners' reference it better.) Thus, if you buy a place for $400,000 you can turn around and rent it out and get $200,000 to (if you like) buy another place or whatever. Since there are very, very few mortgages in Korea (kind of a cash society, although there are home-equity lines of credit) the system here is a bit different. The key, of course, is that real estate prices keep going up.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

10,June,2004

Somehow Coca-Cola has a way of summing up things so well. In the early 1970s they had as their flagship jingle 'I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke' (to the tune of 'I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing') that pretty much summed up the post-Woodstock era so well. It didn't add much to sales, but it was a catchy tune. In Korea Coke's theme is urlLink Stop Thinking. Feel it. which pretty much sums up a lot about Korea and Koreans. (Look at how relaxed that couple is, now that they stopped thinking and started feeling.) Of course they have a high regard for education and math and logic and such, but deep down I think many Koreans really like to work on emotion more than anything else. Westerners seem to sublimate this moreso, or at least display it in a different way. Maybe scratch all that...Westerners and Koreans are probably pretty similar, but the context in which we do it is different. Anyways, if you think you're losing it in Korea just repeat to yourself 'Stop thinking, feel it. Stop thinking, feel it. Stop thinking, feel it.' and everything will be alright.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

10,June,2004

If anything, Korea is a country of extremes. Everything here seems fad-based. I think it may come from Korea's history. It has been invaded a reported 700 times over the years, and each time they got independence I imagine they had to move quickly to get to the next level before the next war or occupation. Lately (well, not really lately...in 1945) the Japanese Occupation ended. Then the Korean War occurred from 1950-3. After that there was turmoil, but in 1961 Park Chung Hee took over as dictator/president. He had elections, in which everyone was 'encouraged' to vote, but he was still a dictator. After his assassination in 1979 the next few leaders were basically of the same ilk. President Park did some amazing things in his time, however. He took an incredibly backward country and set it on the road to industrialization. Japan had stripped Korea of its resources, people and even its language and culture (many buildings and palaces were razed and Japanese was the official language here from 1910-1945) but President Park was determined to change that. He orchestrated the 'Han River Miracle' (the Han River, or Hangang 한강 is the main river in Seoul/Korea) and Korea made terrific strides, if at the expense of some civil liberties. Fastforward to the present, and my point, and we see that Korea is the world's #1 wired nation. More than Canada, Finland and way beyond the U.S.A. There was a craze to have PC방s (PC bangs or rooms) EVERYWHERE in the country. As well, instead of PlayStation-like games where players go against the computer or one or two people, Korean gamers (always the communal types) play online games with hundreds or thousands of others. in typical Korean fashion, gamers who left their seat for a second could not pause their game...in fact, they may be eliminated. So PCbang owners sold drinks, ramen nooodles and other junk to their clientele. It was just a matter of time before someone died, as related in urlLink this article . Yes, someone died from being on the PC. People thought he was just sleeping (imagine how long he was there before they really checked him out) but, alas, he was the first known casulty of the Net in Korea, maybe the world. Korea, built on extremes, both good and bad.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

10,June,2004

Take a read of this news article from urlLink JoongAng Ilbo about North Korea's opinion on the scaling down of troops in Seoul and Korea (specifically, 3,600 troops are heading to Iraq and by the end of 2005 the current total of 37,000 should drop to about 24,500). North blasts U.S. troop cuts North Korea again blasted the United States yesterday for what it calls 'an increase of U.S. defense capabilities' after the planned relocation of 3,600 U.S. troops in South Korea to Iraq. Pyeongyang's state-run television network said the plans were preparations for a second Korean war. 'Even though part of the U.S. ground forces will be transferred to Iraq, instead of causing a capability vacuum, U.S. President Bush is augmenting his war policy against the North,' the broadcast complained. 'The U.S. security commitment [to South Korea] is a commitment for preemptive war against us,' the current affairs commentary said. Ok, let me get this straight...moving troops OUT of South Korea and, further, OUT of the area closest to North Korea (the DMZ, or DeMilitarized Zone) is somehow INCREASING the U.S. defense capabilities in South Korea??? Well, I've read a lot of North Korean propaganda (such as at urlLink DPRK.com , check out the DPRK News section) but this one is pretty unreal. And with that I'd like to remind everyone that those in the DPRK (I should tell you that means Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or North Korea) are probably very good people, it's just the leadership that seems to be making all the waves (I could be wrong, but I'm not going to go up there and find out). The Korean War from 1950-3 was a brutal event that severed many families...some of whom are now lucky enough to see their aged relatives again (remember, it's been 50+ years) in special reunion projects (albeit only for a few hours before everyone is whisked off to their respective countries). Many, however have or will pass on without ever seeing a sister, brother, child, parent or boy/girlfriend again. We in the West, especially Canada where we've never had a war on our own soil except the War of 1812, could never fully comprehend such things. It really makes your wonder how far one would go to support ideology...I guess we have an idea now.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

09,June,2004

I surf the English news sites a lot looking for tidbits on Korea and how foreigners (like me) view the 'Hermit Kingdom' but also as a way to keep up with this fast-moving place. Sometimes, though, one needs to check the veracity of the figures put in the papers...especially the local ones. Here are two examples of how the English version of the Korea Times and that of the JoongAng Ilbo (Daily). The first is pretty straightforward. urlLink Korea Times said that 249 people were arrested for forging Korean passports, but urlLink JoongAng Ilbo says just 114 were accused. Huh? Another one: urlLink JoongAng Ilbo said that S&P is positive on Korean banks (a good thing), while the urlLink Korea Times said that S&P was a tad worried about the bad loans that banks extended to small and medium-sized firms. I have no idea why the simple facts seem to be presented so differently...it can't simply be translation, can it?

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

09,June,2004

Ah, the Korean language...it looks so difficult at first, then as you figure out how to read Hanguel (Korea's surprisingly easy-to-learn alphabet of 24 characters) it seems so easy. Then the vocabulary starts. Oh no. Then the backwards (to us) sentence structure. Yikes! Luckily there are many options for us slow-witted foreigners to take on the language. Of course I could list them here but urlLink this JoongAng article says a lot and there are more resources urlLink here . Well, if you're a guy here is some motivation for you: Jeon Ji Hyun (전지현), the latest 20-something (24, actually) star of movies and CFs (I hear this means Commercial Feature, but not positive). I saw her latest movie on Sunday night. It's hard to describe the name...the English version is 'Windstruck' but the Korean version is 여친소 (yeochinso) which is short for 내여자친구를소개합니다 (ne yeojachingu rul sogayhamnida) or 'I'd like to introduce you to my girlfriend'. Surprisingly, both titles make sense. If you like, there is a website (Korean and English, looks quite good, actually) urlLink here . The movie is shown in theatres with subtitles at special times, that info is urlLink here . For a list of many of the theatres in Seoul click.... urlLink here! urlLink Here is a great reason to learn Korean...if I wasn't already married, that is. I went with a few foreigners as well as a local/Korean/National...of course the Korean HAD to take a picture...so I HAVE to put it up here. urlLink Here we are after the movie...and before the hof/bar. Update: A bud of mine passed urlLink this link on to me. It's 전지현 in a Giordano ad. Apparently it was NOT aired in Korea (nothing XXX about it, it's all about sensibilities of some sort).

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

09,June,2004

If you click on my profile you'll make a not-so-startling discovery...I was born in Year of the Pig, as they say in the Korean/Chinese calendar. But blogger.com figured it would be more appropriate to call it Year of the Boar/bore...thanks guys. Anyways, you may be wondering how a fat, lazy, smelly Canadian guy born in a little town waaaaaay up north finds himself in a place like Seoul...and Yeouido, no less, where only a handful of foreigners visit, let alone live and work. The culprit is my wife. She is Korean, as you may know, and when I was doing financial consulting in Canada we came across an interesting client. He found us through his wife's (see a pattern here? Korean women rule the men) reading my column in the Vancouver Chosun (Chosun is the name of the last dynasty to rule Korea--it was ended by the 1910-1945 Japanese occupation) which you'll find urlLink here . It's all in Korean, my email and webpage have changed, though. Anyways, this client is a big guy here in Seoul as well as in Canada and wanted (for some reason) to do something for us...so the next time he went to Seoul we went as well (with our first son, second one wasn't around yet). When we arrived in Seoul for our 2-3 week visit we met his 'godfathers' as he called them. He wasn't mixed up in anything, he just liked the sound of being untouchable. From there we met another guy then another guy and then, the next day, my current CEO. We had what economists call a 'coincidence of wants'. He wanted a foreigner with training and experience in securities and alternative assets and I wanted a guy with the connections to get things done in Seoul. After a week or so of meeting for dinner and such (his English was pretty good and is better now, but my wife did a lot of translation in the first part) he said: 'Don't go back to Canada, stay here and work with me.' Not work for me...with me. That was interesting. I knew he had a more enlightened view than most Korean bosses right then and there. So here I am. It's not perfect, I can't speak a lot of the language and sometimes I almost go nuts here what with the differences in culture and business, but it's not bad at all. I also go home every 2 months or so (my wife had baby #2 in Canada and is still there for a bit longer) which means lots of time in airplanes. I always fly urlLink Singapore Air but even then, the prospect of being in the air for 100 hours a year is not all that appealing (ya, that's over 4 DAYS flying, over 1% of the year). I do, however, watch about 20-25 movies a year on the plane, which is cool because Singapore Air has individual monitors with on-demand TV and movies for ALL passengers.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

09,June,2004

Last night was pretty fun...mostly because of the company I kept. I recently met a couple of finance-types here in Yeouido (which isn't too hard to do, as it's referred to as Korea's Wall Street) who spoke pretty good English (which is a rarity here not only in Yeouido but everywhere in Korea). They had studied outside Korea and deal with international business...but still my brutal Canadian accent made it pretty tough for them to figure out what I was saying sometimes. There was one time that their accent got in the way, though. When we went to the restaurant the guy (Junseok, the gal is named Hye-Kyung) asked: 'Do you like deok?' I wrote it just as I heard it. I thought he meant dog (they eat that here) so I called his bluff and said, 'Sure, let's go! What kind of dog?' 'Oh no, deok, deok!' 'Ya, dog?' 'No, deok,' he said again. Then I figured out that he meant 'duck' and said, 'Oh, 오리 (oh-ri), duck! Not 개 (gay), dog! Why didn't you just speak Korean? I know 오리 and 개!' The food was great, then we went to the obligatory 이차 (ee-cha, thanks Hye-Kyung for the correction) or second round. Koreans can never just go to one place to eat and drink. Usually we will wander the streets and go out to three, four or five places. A couple of weeks ago in Hongdae (university bar district here) we went to 4 places: the 산낙지 (san-nak-ji, living octopus) restaurant, Old Rock (cool bar), a 노래방 (noraebang, Korean word for karaoke) and finally clubnb (or noise basement) until the wee hours of the morning. (Personally I prefer the Kangnam version of clubnb, but since we were in Hongdae we went to that one.) The coolest thing here about bar-hopping/pub-crawling is there is almost never a lineup and very rarely a cover (just in the clubs, never in bars). I think this is because people are always moving. In Canada if you get in a bar you never, never leave until you go home...which means those who want to get in have to lineup. Also, if a Korean is asked to wait (for anything, especially after a few drinks) they will just balk and leave...and no bar-owner would like that. Maybe that's why Koreans in general are moving around more and Canadians are so sedate (relatively...if you've lived in both places you know what I mean). Update: looks like everyone wants to be on my blog...for some reason. Here are the pics of my gracious hosts of the evening. urlLink Junseok, who works in International Business and has an MBA...he's trying to come up with a fitting Western name for himself, if you have one to suggest just leave a comment, please. urlLink Hae-Kyung, who works with him. She too has an MBA (and from my wife's alma mater of Ewha Women's University, no less). Hae-Kyung is really good at English and is quite bright...and single (men, take note). She thinks her face looks like the moon, or 달덩이 (Daldeong-ee) as they say here, I guess so...

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

09,June,2004

There is so much that is different here from anything I've ever seen (well, I haven't travelled that much, just in Canada, the US, Philippines and Japan). And I mean totally different. Maybe it's because I've been here long enough to see a lot, I dunno. Anyways, if you'd like more on this place take a look at my urlLink Virtual Tourist pages .

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

09,June,2004

urlLink Here it is, the superfantastic phonebox! Today is a great day. Our lovely officegirl Jung Mi (please no letters, that's what secretaries are called here) went to LG Twins building and got me a new phone. I really needed one on account of (i) my old one was all in Korean...which was fine because I memorized where to go to do things on it...and (ii) the screen kept going blank because I produce copious amounts of sweat when I inline skate and was dumb enough to be on the phone at the same time. Well, after 4 screens at 60,000 won a pop I decided it's time to get a new one...but I may end up breaking this one too. It's soooooo cooooool. It has a little camera which I used to take a picture of the box (of course it took me a while to figure out that I couldn't use it to take a pic of the actual phone). I also took a pic of our lovely officegirl...and then inputted her name and number as well...then ordered up caller ID (something I didn't have before, much to my chagrin). Then I asked her to call me to test it out. Her mug showed up on the little screen on the outside of the phone (how cool is that?!?!) and she immediately started panicking and saying, 'Change! Change!' haha, Some Korean girls really hate to have pictures taken of them. She did, however, insist that I put the pic on this posting...go figure. This phone really rocks. I can take pictures, email them or send to other phones, and send and receive normal emails too. Also, it has a language converter so everything is finally in English. It's tiny, too...like the size of a fat businesscard. urlLink Here she is doing the Korean sign for 'take my picture'. urlLink Here is a coworker of mine with the same pose. Why? Why?

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

09,June,2004

One thing I love about Seoul (and I mean this about Korea in general...I just happen to be a little Seoul-centric) is the street sellers. I don't really trust the food they sell on the side of the road (except ice cream) but virtually everything else is fair game for me. For example, to get ready for my trip to Canada and generally stock up, in the last two weeks I bought: 2 plants in a can for my nieces (8,000 won) 2 lightweight sports shirts for inlining (10,000 won for both) 1 pair of shorts for inlining (20,000 won) 3 bags of dried 고구마 (goguma, sweet potatoes or yams, they were selling 1 for 3,000 won , 2 for 5,000 but I got 3 for 6,000) 1 tie (at an amazing price of 5,000 won, or USD 4...and I can't really tell how it's worse than the ones I bought for USD 100 back home.) 10 disposible razors (for 1,000 won, or USD 0.80 FOR ALL TEN) 1 noise-making toy hammer for boy #2 (1,000 won) 3 Disney photo albums (but I'm sure ol' Walt didn't make a penny on these....just 1,000 won each) The clothes-seller guy spoke pretty good English...I know because he held my hostage for 5 minutes as we talked about how Korean men are getting fatter (hence his stock of larger sizes for husky guys like me) and how he learned English working for the US Army about 20-30 years ago. The goguma-guy didn't know a lot of English, but he did speak Spanish owing to the fact that he lived in Argentina for a few years. Unfortunately, Spanish is not one of my languages...I know a fair bit of French from my school-days, a smattering Japanese and, of course, some Korean. Anyways, when I passed the goguma-guy later in the week I gave him a big 'hola!' (Spanish for hello, and the extent of my proficiency) and he returned one as well...wow, bridging the cultures with another one...how UN of me. Below is a picture of the famous Yeouido tie-truck. This guy stops in the hotspots and unloads silk and polyester ties on neckwear-hungry salarymen. urlLink Here they are: 2 for 5,000 won (USD 4.50)!

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

09,June,2004

urlLink Wonderful oh-gyup-sal at my favorite pork restaurant. It's official, pork has now outstripped beef as the top meat import to Korea. (See urlLink JoongAng Ilbo link ) and no wonder...what with Mad Cow Disease and Avian Flu virus going around. The only thing that seems 'safe' is pork. Of course, as you may know, oh-gyup-sal literally means 5 layers of fat...so maybe it's not super healthy. Well, I wasn't that bad, I did do 2 hours of inline skating (as they call it here...rollerblading seems to have a tough time rolling off the Korean tongue) beforehand...but the 오겹살 was drowned by a lovely concoction called 오십세주 (oh-ship-say-joo) which is a 50/50 mix of 백세주 (baek-say-ju, literally: hundred year alcohol) and 소주 (soju, literally: booze) thus the translation of the combined drink is called 50 year alcohol. Intersting, eh?

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

18,June,2004

Here is the latest from the Korean rumor mill (it made it all the way to Coquitlam, and my wife's ears). It seems The Grand Hyatt Hotel's (in Itaewon) urlLink J.J. Mahoney's has a reputation for beautiful Korean ladies using it as a place to pick up foreign (likely white) men...even married ones. So, if you're single and looking for a good time check out J.J.'s (just bring a lot of dough, the prices are about two times that of most other Western bars). If you're married...well, that's up to you (you should know that some of the gals on the prowl there are 'ladies for sale' there was well, and the prices are reportedly quite high). If your man is in Seoul and reading this (or otherwise knows the score) better get a polygraph...from what I saw some of those gals are pretty good looking (not that I was looking, of course). Well, that's it for tonight. I gotta take the boy to school tomorrow at like 9AM (which is early for my vacation-time now).

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

17,June,2004

Well, I stand corrected, again. Yesterday I blogged that Coquitlam was an oasis of Whiteness in the sea of Asians that is Vancouver, but oh how I was wrong. We went to the, aptly named, Coquitlam Mall today and put Spencer in the play area with a few other kids. I heard a lady speaking Korean to her boy, then a flock (well, three) ajumas (older Korean ladies) came and sat near us. Later, when we went to the pool, we saw that the neighbors right next to us and across the street are Koreans too. Then on the way back I learned that another two sets of neighbors are Korean as well. They're everywhere! It's actually pretty cool. One thing about Koreans is they have a pretty good sense of community. Get a group of white people (who aren't farmers) together and we seem to be pretty stand-offish...or at least it takes a while to warm up. Koreans, as you may know, urlLink refer to each other as sister or brother as soon as 3 minutes of meeting one another (as I have seen). This is, I think, quite extraordinary. From first meetings with my son my wife called the girls in the area 'nuna' or 'older sister, as said by a younger brother' (they have a special word for every family member). Also, since Koreans don't normally take to English all that well (or quickly) they really, really appreciate speaking with someone from home. Thus, the community here is quite tight. So I've still got jetlag...although it's pretty nice not to have to work through it. The boys tend to keep me moving all day, though. Usually I sleep at 3AM or 4AM then get up at 11AM, but it's not a good urlLink REM sleep. My best sleep seems to be 1-2 hour naps at 3PM or 7PM. When I wake up from those it's really like getting up in the morning; and getting up in the morning is like waking up at midnight. My father-in-law thinks I should just adjust 100% in like 2 days, but I'm not sure if I'm built that way. If I need to I can do it, but it's like I'm on vacation here. Besides, I do my work at night anyways, when the kids are asleep (and Seoul is awake). I guess that's it for now. Nothing more profound than this from the day, which is a little sad. I love it here: so clean, peaceful and easy to live; but I kinda miss Seoul too: so dirty, loud and easy to get run down by urlLink deliveryboys on motorcycles .

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

16,June,2004

So I've been in Vancouver a few days now...in Coquitlam, actually. It's really an interesting place; I used to think it was full of Chinese people (not that there's anything wrong with that, but Vancouver's #1 mother tongue is Mandarin/Cantonese, so you'd assume there'd be tons here). Our area is up on a hill in a little bit of paradise, actually. It has started to remind me of Newport in that show urlLink The O.C. (O.C. means Orange County). Well, it isn't full of million dollar homes (but there are a few) but the topography is similar (hills, lots of parks, but no beach) and it's really, really white here. I think the only Koreans I've seen have been family and Ensign Harry Kim on Star Trek: Voyager (ya, still have jetlag...watching anything that hits the screen here). On that note, I think I'm having T.V. overload. Well, with the kids I don't get to see too much of it, but when I do I'm boggled by the 60+ stations (and that's not even satellite!) and all, save one, of them are in ENGLISH! Wow! In Seoul I didn't even bother with cable so all I had was urlLink AFN (American Forces Network) (that guy on the homepage is their 6:30 newsanchor...the very reason I like to inline/rollerblade from 6-8PM). Even if you have cable you only get like 2-3 other 'B' movie stations...nothing to write home about. Truth be told, though, AFN has a pretty good lineup and I get to learn all about opsec (operational security) and that the U.S. Army in Korea is looking for E-4s and E-5s (enlisted ranks) to be MPs (Military Police). So if you can handle the G.I. ads AFN is pretty cool. Anyways, I didn't remember so many ads for weight-loss programs, get-rich-quick schemes and fantastic kitchen products, but there they were. Of course in Korea most people are pretty fit and they know the best way to get rich is to marry rich or work hard--there are some ads there for kitchen and cleaning product, though, proving that some things truly are universal. One ad that did throw me, though, was one for a 'male enhancement' pill. What?!?!? You take a pill for a bigger willi? One version even had about 30 allusions to 'wood' throughout it. I thought it was a spoof...maybe it was...it was on CNBC during urlLink The Dennis Miller Show . If anyone knows, please comment. Ok, back to my time here. We went down to the clubhouse to have a dip (ya, it's a little swanky...but the pool is outside, so it's not super-swanky) and there were some 18-something gals there sunning themselves and gabbing. Man, this is NOT Seoul. For one thing, no one actually tries to get a tan in Korea. They wear Darth Vader-inspired visors to keep out all the rays they can and everyone is totally covered up. Even when exercising Korean have pants, long-sleeves, even suits . Also, two of the three of them were 'plus size'. They weighed like 2-3 TIMES that of a typical Korean gal. (Not that that's a bad thing...it's just differences...please, no flames.) Then you have to think...if they are 18 aren't they still in school? By that I mean, they have not graduated from college. An 18-year old Korean would be in the library or at a DVD bang, at least. Most likely not at a pool (and I hear they're there everyday for hours on end)...what a different lifestyle. Even after school is finished they'd be working or looking for a husband, or both. Let's face it, many Koreans have little time to be idle (I must say, they do take time to drink and go to the sauna, though). Maybe I'm becoming too Korean now, beating up these gals simply for having a little fun. All I know is if they did that in Korea people might think they are urlLink R.S. (room salon, or places where men pay women to drink with them, sing with them and...uh...do other things) girls. Maybe that's part of the Korean ideal. Women should study and work and find a husband and if they are 'wasting' their time everyday then they must be of low moral fiber. Hmmmm...there could be something to that. Maybe it's part of the reason why so many Korean gals work their butts off (literally, Korean women are usually devoid of a derriere) and seem to push off their own pleasure in some Calvinist tradition. Korean men seem to support this as it not only support the Confucius ideals that many Koreans follow but makes their place as symbolic leader of the home that much more solid (whether it is deserved or not, and we know that in many Korean homes a strong wife controls more than she advertises).

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

15,June,2004

Whenever I see a pregnant Korean lady I really feel for her, because I know that within a few months she will have a 3-5 year sentence to complete and utter child-rearing duties. As with most things Korean, mothers go all out...right from before conception to...well, it never stops. Today I got a taste of that. What a day! My 3-year old (Spencer) woke me up at 9AM (which is early seeing as I still have some jetlag and was up from midnight to 3AM last night). The younger, Winston, was already up, too. My wife and I must have fed these kids like 5-7 times during the day, they just never stop! Spencer and I went to his swimming class. We get a discount on regular swimming since he's enrolled. The gal behind the counter asked if he was swimming outside of the class as well...I really had no idea what was happening and said, 'I'm not sure.' She said, in no uncertain terms, that it meant a lot to her whether he was or not. I just said, ok, he is, how much? Let's see $1.30 plus $2.60...$3.90. You've got to be kidding?! You're bent about chun-on? (1,000 won/$1.15)? This would not happen in Seoul. They'd see Spencer and pay HIM to come into there! Anyways, what I did with him in the pool was pretty much what the 'instructor' did as well...but she had 3 kids to handle. I thought he'd be doing lengths or strokes, but I guess not yet. After swimming I got my wife a Starbucks coffee. She loves the stuff, and apparently can't justify to herself to buy herself one...those selfless Korean women, bless their hearts. After I came home there was shopping to do. I volunteered to go (kudos for me and time to think), then I suggested Spencer come too (thought he'd fall asleep in the car, especially after swimming) then thought we might as well all go (the list she gave me was going to take a couple of people to complete). Well, the kids stayed up the whole time and I started to realize that this parenting thing is a lot harder when the kids are actually in the country with you (I'm usually in Seoul) and it's just you two (her mother and sister were out of town). Good God, these kids didn't sleep until 11PM! Someday they'll make great investment bankers, I mused. To all those out there who are single parents, or even just parents, get yourself a Starbucks...you may not be able to drink it before it gets cold, but at least you have a piece of luxury in your hand for a few seconds.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

14,June,2004

My wife posed a strange question to me tonight. Apparently this is the new fad in Korea...men are asked 'if your wife and your mother are drowning (neither can swim) and you have time to save just one of them who would you choose?'. Many men say, 'my mother, because I can always remarry...but I can never replace my mom.' Ok, true enough, but usually its the wives who ask this and one fellow I know said, in front of a throng of relatives (including his wife) that he'd save his mom. The wife was not impressed. Let's look at this on a more cultural level for a moment. Much of Korean tradition is based on Confucius' teachings; where younger take care of elder, women take care of men and duty to family is first. Parents sacrifice a lot for their kids to get them the best education, lifestyle and necessities; children, in turn, are expected to do the same when they have the means. Thus, a man should choose to save his mother, who did everything for him (and perhaps still does) rather than his wife who is a bit of a late-comer. The reason for all of this ultimatum questioning comes from family conflict. A husband's mother often endures a lot from her husband, children, society and her own mother-in-law and, not one to stop the cycle, she will often unleash her frustration on the unsuspecting wife. She comes to pry into, advise upon and attempt to control many parts of the couple's lives under the guise of helping her dear son. With divorce becoming more accepted and this has broken up more than a few marriages lately; and now people are getting a little pre-emptive, perhaps, in asking the husband to make a choice in order to ascertain his convictions. So, men, if you get this question posed to you first think of who is asking it (probably your wife) take a look around the room to find out who is listening and then give the best answer you can. Just remember, you likely sleep with your wife every night, not your mother.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

13,June,2004

As readers will know, my favorite airline is Singapore Air (SAI). They have those personal monitors for everyone with on-demand movies, TV shows and games..and some lovely-looking stewardesses, of course. Another thing going for them is their empathy with their passengers. I've twice been bumped up to business class (with it's better meals and basically flat sleeper beds...what an experience that is). Once because the travel agent made a mistake and SAI decided they'd make my life a bit easier (hint: if you take the same flight 5-10 times they get to know you, too) and another time my flight was overbooked so I too business to San Francisco and got another one to Vancouver (both covered by SAI) as well as 500 Sing$ (300 USD, 350,000 won) which made for a 40% discount from my ticket price. Anyways, this time I was in line for about 30 minutes (maybe it was longer) and a few times I squatted to relieve my legs a bit. The gal at the counter apologized and put 2 'Solitaire' tags on my bags (will upload pic when I get back to Seoul so you can put your color printer to good use and make a few of your own) that basically put them on par with business class for unloading. Nice. The meals on the flight were good, there were lots of good movies and, as usual, they gave me one of those sleeper masks when I asked for it (in business it's automatic, but if you ask in economy you'll get one). Upon arrival in Vancouver I saw a rare sight, the customs area was packed! A cruise was in port and normal flights all bunched up to. Not to worry, though, as just as I approached the line they opened another area of inspectors...and in about 10 minutes I was picking up my bags. To top it off my cabbie spoke English (something that eluded me in Seoul and Vancouver much of the time) and we had a pretty cool conversation about life, marriage and cultures. (He too believes that once you stop looking for a spouse you'll meet them...a little wisdom for you single-but-lookings out there.) My phone can take pictures here but needs a special chip to connect. I forgot its charger and extra battery, and already ran down the old one...so that's the only blotch on this trip so far; which ain't too bad. I've decided to start to teach him my limited French...which should keep him on his toes. He's already got some of the accent down when he speaks baby-talk.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

23,June,2004

When I was in Seoul these last few months I thought my wife had it kinda easy here with 'just' our 2 kids to take care of. Now I know that this parenting thing is pretty tough. The worst thing is they 'tag team' us. For example, one stays up til 3:30AM, the other wakes up at 7AM. One has a nap, and the other gets hungry. And my wife isn't into lots of crap food for them, too...so she is constantly cooking and preparing wonderful delicacies like 'rice brocolli cheese tofu cakes' and 'seaweed and beef soup'--sounds great, eh?! Well, the kids like it and I guess it's good for them. When I go back to Seoul I know I'll miss these days (and nights) and start my old routine of 6PM rollerblading and going out to the bars on the weekends (maybe even during the week a bit, as my urlLink CFA test is finished for a few months). I know the days will be a little less full without my 3-year old jumping (from the couch) onto my stomache/back/gonads...ah, how can I survive? We will have the webcam and daily phonecalls to make things a bit easier, but it won't be the same. Ug, so tired now...it's past 11PM and I know tomorrow will be busy...and the next day too. My bud of almost 25 years is coming to visit and I'll make the trip to the ferry terminal to pick him up and the new place is now inconveniently 60 minutes from the docks compared to 30 minutes for our old place. No matter, I imagine I'll relish the time alone on a simple car trip.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

22,June,2004

You may have noticed a new feature on my blog...it's a blog email notification thingy ( urlLink Blogarithm ). All you need to do is put your email in the space and 'Keep it Fresh' and you'll get an email every time I update this blog. I use this on blogs that I normally read (once I get better at code I'll actually have them posted on this page too) and find it pretty handy. The last few days have been pretty hectic. Basically in the pool (our complex's or the public one) everyday and running around with the kids and not getting a lot of sleep. My wife and I take turns (one was up til 3AM last night, the other awoke at 7AM)...man, getting back to Seoul and my bachelor pad will be like a vacation--no matter how much work I have at the office. There they go again...gotta go.

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InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

20,June,2004

Korea, especially Seoul, is pretty cool; and Canada, especially Vancouver is pretty cool too. Here are a few things I will (and will not) miss: Things to miss about Korea: being a celebrity (well, a little one, at least...just for being me); 100 kinds of ice cream at the local convenience store (and all for 500 won/USD 0.40); 7 24-hour convenience stores within a block or two of my place; urlLink inlining/rollerblading along the Han River ; bars with no line-ups; bar-hopping to at least 2-4 places in a night; Korean people; not worrying about water on the floor of my urlLink fully tiled bathroom ; super-efficient urlLink subways ; super-cheap urlLink cabs where the subways leave off; urlLink no taxes , urlLink no tipping ; great food, and seconds for free; urlLink alcohol available at any store; eating urlLink live octopus (I mean live as in swimming around in a bowl/on a plate on the table); getting free fruit and/or tea and/or coffee and/or sugary drinks after every meal. Things to miss about Canada: urlLink no pollution (or not noticeable, at least); good mixed drinks (like Dr. Pepper and Long Island iced teas, although that's changing in Seoul now); our complex's pool just 5 minutes away (and it's usually just us or a few people there); urlLink burgers that are not served raw (hellloooooo! heard of e-coli?). Things not to miss about Seoul: drunk guys pissing in the streets at night (well, I am one of them sometimes); people always thinking I'm crazy for not liking tofu; paying like $10 for enough ground beef for 2 hamburgers; having to go to the foreign food section to get my M&Ms. Things not to miss about Canada: line-ups and cover charge at almost every good bar; larger Canadian chicks (hey, no flamings, please); union leaders who think someone should make $20 an hour to pick up trash when Korean 60-year-old men do it in Seoul for like $100 a month; Vancouver rain in the winter...and spring...and fall...and summer; high (14.5%!) sales urlLink tax ; tips treated as if they are expected (no matter the service); having to go to the foreign food section to get my ramen noodles.

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Aquarius

02,July,2004

It seems everything is not all that smooth in Seoul concerning the recent changes. This makes sense because, as Koreans would, they decided not only to change the payment system but also all of the bus color-schemes, routes numbers and routes and even the structure of the roads in some areas of the city (see pic below of a fast lane for buses in one of the worst traffic areas of the city). More in urlLink this Korea Times article . urlLink Life in the fast lane.

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InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

01,July,2004

This may be a long blog...got a lot of thoughts going through my head this last couple of days, not least because of my reading urlLink A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market --a very cool book and one that I wish I read before embarking on the urlLink CFA designation exams (wrote 2 of the 3 required exams already). Anyhoo, went out for some drinks last night (yes, Thursday night, a school night, but I really wanted to break this jetlag and I find that going out is one of the most effective, and most fun, ways to do so) at a little place called Han's Sausages near Hong-Ik University (usually referred to as HongDae). So upon ordering the bratwurst and beer I noticed something interesting, the beer came in a special pitcher that has dry ice in a compartment in the bottom of it and passages that allow the vapor to flow to the top and escape. Pretty cool idea, and I had seen it before in another bar in Sinchon (another teen/bar district near HongDae). While out on the town I started to think, 'What are the odds that I know someone here in this bar or meet them on the street?' Likely pretty low, but then I remembered the last night I came here and got a call from an old co-worker who was basically 2 blocks from me and had just had 산낙지 (san-nak-ji, living octopus) in a little place that we almost went to (now that was interesting). Then I remembered that a friend of mine's former girlfriend is in Korea--not Seoul, in Pusan. But her sister-in-law's friend is engaged to a Korean girl in Daegu who often comes to Seoul (HongDae/Sinchon specifically) to see friends. So, what if one of the thousands of people I saw were one of those friends? How many urlLink degrees of separation is that? Two to the Pusan friend (or one, if you count that I know her now), plus three to the groom-to-be (or two as the Pusan friend already knows her sister-in-law) and two more to the friend(s) in Seoul. So that's 4 to 7 degrees, not bad. I could also suppose that the people on the street know my wife or one of her friends (as she went to school there) but we are older than these kids and it's not quite as interesting a story as going to Vancouver then Daegu then back to Seoul. Another area: yesterday I met some guys from an asset management firm here (for business). One spoke quite good English, and when he found out I was from Vancouver he noted that his brother-in-law is living here. As well, the owner of the urlLink 삼계탕 (samgyetang, ginseng chicken soup) place across from my apartment has a home in a suburb of Vancouver. What are the odds of that? Now let's deconstruct this a bit, and take a bit from my current reading (and suspend for a bit the idea that I have incredible selective memory and am merely drawing connections from random events). On the beer: both restaurants were in the same relative are (more or less) and it makes sense that a seller of those dry-ice pitchers would service both of them. For the people on the street: the university district is full of school kids, school kids are not (usually, especially in Korea) destitute poor and they are (by definition) educated (or nearso) and it is the well-to-do and educated that end up going to foreign countries and meet/marry foreigners (there are exceptions, just humor me for a bit). Thus, it makes some sense that I (who knows many educated people in Korea and Canada, as I am one myself) would have an ok chance to have some connection with similar people in another country, no matter the whereabouts. (This reminds me of when I spent a month in the Philippines with my bud Carlo who met a friend there who ended up being his distant relative. Especially in places where the economic/social strata is well-defined the 'top 1%' seem to flock together.) Concerning the people who have ties in Vancouver. Proximity is one factor, and wealth is another. Vancouver is the closest airport to Seoul (one hour longer to go to San Francisco) and it also has an inviting climate and seems to attract the wealthy from many countries (including the U.S.). So it makes sense that these, again, well-to-do and educated people would have some connection to my other home. What's my point and how does it lead to a better understanding of Korean culture? It's this: When you meet a Korean (or when they are urlLink on their first dates ) they will always ask questions to urlLink figure out if they have some connection such as urlLink age and ethnicity or school ties or anysuch thing that could prove a connection. For foreigners this kind of questioning is sometimes seen as rude, but this is just a part of Korea: you get used to it. This is one reason that Koreans study their butts off to go to the best/largest schools such as urlLink Seoul National University , urlLink Korea University , urlLink Ewha Women's University and urlLink Yonsei University and then put themselves through incredible stress to get into major companies such as urlLink Samsung Group . It's because after all that study and hard work one will have instant camaraderie with fellow alumni and, thus, be able to move to Vancouver when they retire and not have to work selling dry-ice beer pitchers to every bar in Korea.

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Aquarius

01,July,2004

I've always thought of Seoul's urlLink subways as a real joy to be on. They are clean, fast, efficient(more or less) and CHEAP. Buses, on the other hand, are a bit of a mystery to me. I take one bus regularly, but that's it. urlLink taxis , however, are plentiful, cheap and (once you know a little Korean) pretty easy to use. Now things are getting a lot easier and logical. As of today (July 1st) rates will be based on distance traveled rather than number of rides. This makes sense as it always irked me when you had to pay again to transfer from one bus to another or from the bus to subway (this doesn't happen in Vancouver). The new system just has you pay for the length of each little trip. As well, my phone will be able to house my T-Money so I don't need to carry change or fish around for my wallet or 'stored-value' ticket. (It can even be used in convenience stores and cabs soon! And carry up to 500,000 won, or about 435USD)There's also a color-coding scheme to the buses which may or may not make things easier. Unless they have little maps on the buses I think most foreigners will find the new system about a confusing as the old, but a lot of that has to do with the language and familiarity with a city/district that covers many, many square kms. Check out articles on all this stuff urlLink here , urlLink here and urlLink here .

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Aquarius

30,June,2004

Big cities are famous for being expensive places to live, some more than others, of course. Here is the latest (2004, urlLink source ) list of priciest cities to live in (sorry not sure how to format a table): 1 Tokyo, Japan 2 London, UK 3 Moscow, Russia 4 Osaka, Japan 5 Hong Kong 6 Geneva, Switzerland 7 Seoul, South Korea 8 Copenhagen, Denmark 9 Zürich, Switzerland 10 St. Petersburg, Russia 11 Beijing, China 12 New York City, USA 13 Milan, Italy 14 Dublin, Ireland 15 Oslo, Norway 16 Shanghai, China 17 Paris, France 18 Istanbul, Turkey 19 Vienna, Austria 20 Sydney, Australia 21 Rome, Italy 22 Stockholm, Sweden 23 Helsinki, Finland 24 Abidjan, Ivory Coast 25 Douala, Cameroon 26 Amsterdam, Netherlands 27 Los Angeles, USA 28 Berlin, Germany 29 Hanoi, Vietnam 30 Shenzhen, China 31 Taipei, Taiwan 32 Guangzhou, China 33 Tel Aviv, Israel 34 Budapest, Hungary 35 Chicago, USA 36 Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 37 Beirut, Lebanon 38 San Francisco, USA 39 Luxembourg 40 Düsseldorf, Germany 41 Glasgow, UK 42 Frankfurt, Germany 43 Munich, Germany 44 Bratislava, Slovak Republic 45 Jakarta, Indonesia 46 Singapore 47 Dakar, Senegal 48 Riga, Latvia 49 Prague, Czech Republic 50 Athens, Greece 51 Birmingham, UK 52 White Plains, USA 53 Brussels, Belgium 54 Kiev, Ukraine 55 Miami, USA 56 Barcelona, Spain 57 Honolulu, USA 58 Hamburg, Germany 59 Zagreb, Croatia 60 Algiers, Algeria 61 Madrid, Spain 62 Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates 63 Amman, Jordan 64 Kuwait City, Kuwait 65 San Juan, Puerto Rico 66 Casablanca, Morocco 67 Melbourne, Australia 68 Washington, USA 69 Lyon, France 70 Boston, USA 71 Lisbon, Portugal 72 Morristown, USA 73 Houston, USA 74 Almaty, Kazakhstan 75 Tallinn, Estonia 76 Warsaw, Poland 77 Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 78 Manama, Bahrain 79 Sofia, Bulgaria 80 Auckland, New Zealand 81 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia 82 Ljubljana, Slovenia 83 Dubai, United Arab Emirates 84 Mexico City, Mexico 85 Atlanta, USA 86 Wellington, New Zealand 87 Brisbane, Australia 88 Adelaide, Australia 89 Toronto, Canada 90 Seattle, USA 91 Vilnius, Lithuania 92 St. Louis, USA 93 Leipzig, Germany 94 Perth, Australia 95 Limassol, Cyprus 96 Vancouver, Canada 97 Accra, Ghana 98 Cleveland, USA 99 Cairo, Egypt 100 Denver, USA 101 Detroit, USA 102 Monterrey, Mexico 103 Kingston, Jamaica 104 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 105 Portland, USA 106 Panama City 107 Winston Salem, USA 108 Guatemala City, Guatemala 109 Mumbai, India 110 Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei 111 Lagos, Nigeria 112 Pittsburgh, USA 113 Montreal, Canada 114 Calgary, Canada 115 Tianjin, China 116 New Delhi, India 117 Dacca (Dhaka), Bangladesh 118 Lima, Peru 119 Bangkok, Thailand 120 Tunis, Tunisia 121 Nairobi, Kenya 122 Tehran, Iran 123 Santiago, Chile 124 Ottawa, Canada 125 Lusaka, Zambia 126 Johannesburg, South Africa 127 Colombo, Sri Lanka 128 São Paulo, Brazil 129 Bucharest, Romania 130 San José, Costa Rica 131 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 132 Karachi, Pakistan 133 Chennai (Madras), India 134 Caracas, Venezuela 135 Blantyre, Malawi 136 Quito, Ecuador 137 Bangalore, India 138 Manila, Philippines 139 Bogotá, Colombia 140 Harare, Zimbabwe 141 Buenos Aires, Argentina 142 Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic 143 Montevideo, Uruguay 144 Asunción, Paraguay Whew, that was long...I have to learn more about cutting code so I can make this thing prettier. Anyways, Seoul is #7 and the first Canadian city is the 'Big Smoke' (as my Dad calls it), Toronto at #89 then my recent/dual hometown of Vancouver at #96 (I suspect it'll rise next year as real estate is on a bit of a tear lately). Thing is, if you have the residence/home thing taken care of (as most teachers do in Korea) then living in Seoul/Korea can be pretty cheap. Of course you can always spend $4,500 USD for a bottle of urlLink Macallan 50 year-old whisky at urlLink SkyBar , but if you keep your head on straight it's not too bad. Every morning I go to my local 7-11 and have 2 urlLink 삼각김밥 (sam-gak-gim-bab, literally 3-angled/triangle seaweed and rice) for about 1USD. Today I splurged for a 새우버거 (say-oo/shrimp burger) but the price was still under 2USD. (It's good for dieting too, as my wife near-constantly reminds me, because rice has 1/3rd the fat of bread and likely 1/100th that of a croissant, muffin or bagel.) urlLink My lovely breakfast. Shrimp burger and triangle kimbap.

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Aquarius

29,June,2004

Koreans have a great sense of community. So much so that sometimes they figure they can have a nap any old place. Now I understand taking a snooze in a subway car (they are safer here) or taxi (done that a few times), but on some steps? Well, it happens. urlLink I couldn't resist taking a pic of this guy...it was like 6PM and he was already sacked out on the front steps of a building in Sinchon (teen district of Seoul). Notice his jacket is a step or so down from his resting place. Must be nice to be in a virtually crime-free city.

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Aquarius

29,June,2004

urlLink The business class tag for baggage. I have to keep this in pristine condition for future flights.

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Aquarius

29,June,2004

I used to cook for myself all the time (making bulggogi, kalbi and even lasagna). Now, however, I'm getting pretty lazy. Food is so good, plentiful and cheap in the restaurants (nevermind that Koeans love to go out to eat so if I did cook a large amount of food about half of it would go to waste anyways) that I've decided not to shop for anything more than noodles and booze. (See photos for the result.) Far from what I expected, I ended up losing weight and spending about the same amount of money, go figure. urlLink What a balanced diet I have...noodles and more noodles, tuna, gochoo jang (sauce). urlLink My fridge, the oranges are just for show, they've been in there for like 6 weeks. Notice the contents: ketchup, mayo, orange juice (jeju-do) beer, soju, beaksayju, mayshilju, onions.

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Aquarius

29,June,2004

I often wondered where the restauranteurs heated up the briquettes or brinks or rocks that they placed in the table for traditional Korean cooking...then I saw this. This place (not a good pic, it was from a taxi with my phone-camera) actually has a fire on the sidewalk right in front of it! The guy is pickin out a red/white-hot brick for the patrons inside. Only in Korea. urlLink Fire in the hole!

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Aquarius

29,June,2004

It feels like I didn't even leave this place, which is a little scary. Things will be a little weird for a bit (as I take about a week to get over jetlag, unlike some people I know who take about 2 days) so postings may be a little sporatic for a bit. As well, work is getting busier...which is fine my me. It's kind of interesting, actually. At this job we always have something to do (I do the weekly newsletter, research, presentations to clients, and liaise with our foreign partners) but there are definate lulls and busy times. Just before my vacation was a lull, now we're back in the thick of things. Speaking of thick, take a look at this pic. Many days here are like this (although, admittedly, not this brutal). Some are blue-skied, but even then you know that the pollution is there. I left my windows upon when I went home and when I came back there was a thin layer of soot on the floor...hmmmm, that seems real nice, eh? Now I know why my mother-in-law always cleaned the floor every day or so. Apparently Seoul has DOUBLE the amount of particles (I'm assuming 'bad' particles) in its air. Anyone who jogs here is nuts (but I, of course, do inline/rollerblade almost everyday, so I'm no better). urlLink Lovely Seoul smog. One problem is the number of cars here, another is the level of industrialization and lack of environmental laws (or enforcement thereof) but there is also the polution that comes over from China (where things, from what I hear, are a lot worse) and the urlLink Yellow Wind/Dust that makes its way to our shores once or twice a year. I was in one of these storms a few years ago (I was the only gomer without a surgical mask on) and I felt pretty weird afterward. If you have a respiratory problem things could get ugly.

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Aquarius

27,June,2004

It's been a busy last couple of weeks, but I'm on my way back to Seoul today. Didn't get near what I wanted to get done on this trip--had planned on heading downtown to see a few buds but couldn't get the time to get away at all. A few friends made the trek up to our place, though, which was cool. It's nice to see friends you've known for 10-20 years after being away for a while. One guy that came up here was a friend of a sister of a friend who is marrying (as soon as he gets the familial blessing) a Korean, so my wife and I gave him the 411 on Koreans and ways to do things. (More on that when I get back to Seoul, and have more time.) Got to go now.

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Aquarius

10,July,2004

A night out in Korea can seem pretty overwhelming, especially in HongDae, Kangnam Sinchon, urlLink Sincheon , Itaewon, Daehak-ro or any of the other major hotspots in town. Hongdae, Sinchon and Daehak-ro make a name for themselves by being close to the major universities; Kangnam is a place for lavishing high-priced liquors and girls on clients; Itaewon is near the US Army base, so it's a haven for GIs and other English-speakers (who seem to have more money than brains sometimes, myself included) and Sincheon is a teen district as well, in the well-to-do area of Songpa-gu. My latest foray was to Daehak-ro (daehak/daehak-kyo means college/university, ro means street). We went to a ddak-kalbi (grilled chicken) place and saw a group of 3 guys whooping it up Korean style (copious amounts of soju and food and louder speaking). One was pretty funny. I don't know if he was doing it for my benefit or to show-off to the Koreans around him (Koreans sometimes show that they know English as a form of one-up-man-ship...it shows they are educated and studied a lot, no matter how brutal the usage). He was saying such things as 'Excuse me, could you calm down?' (actually, he said that A LOT) and 'I'm sorry' and 'Okay!'. I think he was practicing to be a bar bouncer or something. Anyways, these guys got pretty loaded. When one of them was away from the table it looked like the other two were a little amorous (Korean men sometimes hold hands or put their arms around each other, especially after a gallon of soju). I snapped the picture below before we left. urlLink 2 guys who really like each other (but they are not gay). Then when we finished walking nature was calling me...but not #1. I took a look into the urlLink hwa-jang-shil (bathroom) in the restaurant, but it was a squat-type. Then we came across this theatre (below...oh, and Koreans usually pronounce theatre and Seattle the similarly). It was new so I took a look. Man, that bathroom was spotless--maybe it looked so good because I figured that all of the ones in the area were squatters or brutally dirty affairs, as they usually are in smaller, older buildings (man, how do these women do it?). Anyways, that's the tip. Look for the newest, hippest building (especially ones with Western food or themes inside) to find the best W.C. (another way Koreans denote watercloset). urlLink Fantaseum Since Korea has millions (ten of millions, likely) of cellphones (handphones, as they call them) you'll find public pay phones only in a few places: the airport, the train/bus stations, major hotels and the subways. (Well, I've seen them on the street sometimes, but not that often, and not when you need one.) urlLink phones Another instance of Korean marketing gone bonkers. urlLink Red Mango is a major bing-soo (shaved ice garnished with fruit and stuff and then topped with yogurt or ice cream). But the tagline for the firm is a little....well, weird 'Start loving myself!'. When I explain it to people they really get confused. urlLink Red Mango Another thing here that's funny is girls wear shirts that say '69', it's a brand here but they are oblivious to the hidden meaning (if you don't know I can't explain it here, this site is family-friendly). Or church-going girls will have a Playboy scrunchie in their hair...not knowing who 'The Hef' is. Koreans also have no idea the multitude of words we have for a part of the male anatomy (so the scene in urlLink Austin Powers where they say 'woody, Johnston, boner, balls, willi...) goes over most of their heads. They have one word here for it urlLink go-choo (hot pepper), and they're pretty surprised to learn that their word for 'ward' in a city (dong) is also another euphemism for gochoo. urlLink And, to cap it off, in the subway there was a guy taking a snooze right on the floor.

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Aquarius

09,July,2004

Some of you may remember my first article on oh-gyup-sal (five layers of fat pork). Oh-gyup-sal is a one-up on sam-gyup-sal (three layers of fat porl), so it only makes sense that this land of hyperbole would come up with chun-gyup-sal (1,000 layers of fat pork)--and it did. As amazing as it may seem, someone got the great idea of leap-frogging all of the competition and calling what is basically pork chop a name that denotes something a little more superlative. Why not trillion layers of fat pork (jo-gyup-sal)? I have no idea. urlLink The sign says '1,000 layers of fat pork'...mmmmmmm. Well, Korea isn't the only place where things get blown out of proportion sometimes, it's just that they do it so well here and we're not used to it. Who can forget the launch of the urlLink Gilette Mach 3 ? Yes, that's what I need! Three blades on my face! (Of course they had 'Excel' versions of their Sensor, Mach 3 and ladies' razors, too, as if we needed that little white strip to save from cutting our faces open.) Recently the urlLink Schick Quattro came out (for those of you who failed Latin, Italian, Audi or whatever language this is in: quattro means expensive). Now Gillette has a 'power' version of its razor. Now this is getting ridiculous! Here in Korea I get 10 good razors for 2,000 won (USD 1.75). (Yes, 17.5c each!) They're so cheap I only use them twice then throw them away. (Please no Greenpeace/eco-friendly group flamings.) And you know what? I get a pretty good shave out of it, too...similarly I only buy plain ol' pork chops at home.

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Aquarius

08,July,2004

Sometimes this place really makes me think. So many things are so different here (language, expressions, people, culture, shopping, driving habits) but, yet, some things are just like home. Take my building, for instance, there are a few guards (we call them 아저씨, ajeosshi, or 'mister') in the lobby...well, they're no so much guards as they are greeters, like at Wal-Mart (neat article urlLink here ). After they figured I was not a visitor, but a long term resident of Seoul they started saluting me, waving and saying 'Morning'. Huh, morning? Ok, I guess they learned that greeting somewhere. Many Koreans in lower-level jobs know absolutely no English and what they may have learned these old timers probably had long forgotten, so I appreciated the effort. Then I was inline skating (rollerblading to those of us who can pronounce it easily) one lovely 4AM and another 아저씨 said 'Morning!'. Ok, that's two. Interesting. Then I got to thinking (well, it came to me while watching a Kia ad) that Morning is everywhere in Korea. This morning (there I go again) I saw a give-away paper called 모닝 (Korean phonetic of morning) and then recalled the ad for urlLink Kia's sub-compact car . A simple search on Google Korea came up with more: an urlLink online bookstore , an urlLink online flowershop , a urlLink golf site and a urlLink news organization . Then there's urlLink Good Morning Shinhan , one of the largest secutities dealers in Korea--with its flagship building in Yeouido, one of the largest in town and flaunting its name, albeit in Hanguel/Korean text, for all to see. And, of course, this is the 'Land of the Morning Calm'. I could go on, but you get the point. 'Morning' is not without it's detractors, though. About a year ago there was a major scam where a real estate developer conned million from many small investors. One lady summed it up well saying, 'Now I know what it is like to go from a rich person to a begger in one day.' Definately not a good morning for her. As an aside, apparently another Western idea is hamburgers, and in NORTH KOREA, no less. (JoongAng Article urlLink here .) Here's your factoid for the day: although most words are pronounced and even used differently than the original, Korean has incorporated about 10,000 English words into its language; much like Tagalog/Filipino has a lot of Spanish and we Westerners are comfortable with Bon Appetit and Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto.

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07,July,2004

A readers will know, shopping in Seoul is a little different from back home (assuming back home is a Western country like Canada, the US, UK...). For one thing ( urlLink more things here ), you can haggle at almost every 'store' (and some for sure at every place that is not a store, but like the picture below). This includes the 'department stores' like Migliore, Doota and Hello ampm that are in Dongdaemoon (each area actually stalls of independent sellers) but not such high class/price places like Shinsegae or Lotte Depart. There is also no haggling at Lotte Mart, LG Mart nor E-Mart, but in those places you're getting a bit better surroundings than the true discount stores. Anyways, I find that haggling is a bit of an art...and it takes a little while to get the hang of it. After a while you'll wonder why you don't get a discount back home, though. (There is also urlLink no tax on purchases; it's either included in the price or just not paid--especially at street-sellers.) Like today, I went to Namdaemoon for some shopping, had to get a few undershirts and towels. I found a seller of both and asked the prices: 2,200 won for a shirt, 1,700 won for a towel...no discount. Huh, ya, right. I offered 16,000 (compared to the 16,800 total price...this is NOT a big discount, just 5%, but I was in a hurry and didn't have 5 minutes to haggle for $1.50 off). She said, 'no discount' again, but I said (in Korean) 'I'm buying 3 of these and 6 of these, discount!' and she relented. Oh, it helps if you can do simple math in your head (the seller sure as heck can) and if you know enough Korean to at least urlLink say the prices in Korean . Otherwise you're a bit of a mark. Now for this picture. This 'store' popped up literally right on the street near my work and the sellers were luring the office girls to try on their lovely selection of shoes. No guarantee, but for $10 a pair and the way fashion trends have the life of a gnat here who cares? urlLink Get your ladies shoes right here!

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06,July,2004

Recently I downloaded Go-Stop (a traditional Korean card game, played almost exclusively by men, Yahoo!'s version is urlLink here ) to my phone. (There is one called Sexy-Go-Stop too, for those who are into Anime.) Well, I've been playing it (the clean version) so much that my battery dies sometimes when I'm out (is this an addiction?). The last time was out at the movie theatre (the MMC in Dongdaemoon is open 24 hours, if anyone is looking for a flick at 3AM). A friend of mine said they have chargers at convenience stores (I also remember them at some restaurants too). Then we found that they had them at the theatre, too. The young kids there knew how to hook up the battery...they were really helpful, actually. Koreans are so nice sometimes. Here's a pic of what to look for if you're in Korea and your phone goes dead. urlLink You stick your battery in here for about 5-10 minutes and it's powered up (but the charge wears down more quickly, I think). More things I like in Korea: delivery services. I ordered a few books from urlLink Seoul Selection (a great foreign bookstore that has an interesting urlLink newsletter that's worth subscribing to--it's free). Anyways I ordered online at 3:00PM. The order showed up at my door at 9:30 the next morning. This would not happen in Canada unless you paid extra for delivery, and even then it'd maybe be 2 nights as I ordered late in the day. Korea, though has a ubiquitous number of urlLink quick service delivery services (as they're called). This means it takes about 1-2 hours for a package to get across town because a motorbike courier takes it rather than taking it in a van to a sorting station then another van for delivery. (It's similar to the bike couriers that we have in the West, but no one bikes on the roads here.) I also like the way Korea updates things. The pics below show one example. In the old days there was a rarefied breed of warrior who guarded the main palaces and nobles, today there is another (decidedly more leggy) version. (Um, this is a joke, for those who believe everything they read.) urlLink Changing of the Guard and Twirling of the Rifles.

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05,July,2004

One of my favorite places in 여의도 (Yeouido) is urlLink Wingswing located on the second floor of the building behind the Lexington (formerly the New Manhattan) Hotel. It's run by the son-in-law of a Korean who spent 20 years in New York and Atlanta running similar places...and now the old man is here to revamp it. They added 2 bar counters and hard liquor (and recipes) as well as more to the menus (spaghetti, quesadillas). Last time I was there I had Crown Royal (oh, how I love it) and the time before they served us this Flaming Dr. Pepper which is a shot of Bacardi 151 in a glass of beer. It's not as tasty as the version I know (Amaretto shot in a 50/50 beer/Coke mix) but not bad. Probably one of the few places in Seoul you can get some of the booze this place has--and the only one in Yeouido. urlLink Flaming Dr. Pepper at Wingswing

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Aquarius

04,July,2004

Over the last few weeks I've been to a couple of Western movies ( urlLink Troy and urlLink Spiderman 2 ) and a few Korean ones as well: urlLink 여친소 (Yeochinso/Windstruck) ; urlLink 올드보이 (Old Boy) ; urlLink 공공의적 (Gong-gong-ui Jock/Public Enemy ; urlLink 와일드카드 (Wild Card) ; and urlLink 범죄의 재구성 (Beomjwi-ui Jaegooseong/The Big Swindle) . I really liked all of the Korean movies (actually the Western ones seemed pretty predictable compared to the Korean fare) but found it interesting that 4 of the 5 (all but Old Boy) were cop movies. (To be fair, in The Big Swindle it was more about the robbers than the cops--still, the theme was intact.) Maybe this is typical to movies in general (going in phases, all of the movies are from the last year) or maybe it's just how (again) in Korea things are very much fads; where once a theme gets started it's difficult to stop it. urlLink Public Enemy, WildCard, The Big Swindle and Old Boy With that in mind, I think of my night out on Saturday. A group of friends and I had dinner and a movie in the 동대문 ( urlLink Dongdaemoon ) area then headed to 대학로 (pronounced Daehan-ro, but the Korean spelling is Dae-Hak-Ro: Daehak means university, ro is street, so (as you may have guessed) it is a street near universities--so, of course, there are tons of bars there). It was raining as a typhoon is in town (see the urlLink typhoon tracker page for updates of when one is on its way here) so there weren't many people out on the town. (I, however, didn't mind it as the rain here is pretty warm and I was in shorts a shirt and cut-away sneakers...really quite comfortable.) We went to about 5 places before finding one called 꾼 (Kkoon, an intersting name). The gal running the place said it was their first business day, but the place was empty. The music, however, was really good so I said, 'Service.', as in: what will you give us to come in? She offered plates of snacks and such...sold! The prices were lower than I'm used to, too...a good place. So, how does this connect? The ambiance. The bar was like many other ones out there with tables, low lighting, club music, and a table or two that has a trough in the middle for ice and imported beer and coolers (we had 8 different kinds). I guess this is a safe business strategy as it may be fatal to go out on a limb with a new concept in this town unless it does very well, in which case you'll have lots of imitators. I wonder what the next trend will be? Whatever it is, it'll catch on fast. urlLink (JoongAng Ilbo article on this topic.)

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

14,July,2004

In any developing country (and I believe Korea is 'developing' and really only started on the road to a real economy with the onset of real elections in 1994) there can be trials and tribulations for those who lead (politicians, heads of business) and follow (workers, students). Don't get me wrong, Korea has made gigantic strides in the last 50 years (thanks mainly to the iron-grip of their president/dictator from 1961 to 1979, Park Chung Hee) and in the last 10 years (when Korea really started to open up to Western influences)--but things are still in a state of flux here. Business practices have changed (although they retain much of the old flavour), politics...well, politics seems to still be the same..., relationships between people has changed (albeit only a little, Koreans still follow Confucius tenets and defer to age, men and the learned) and even language has changed (as the Internet and chatting has lead to the truncation of many words). With these changes comes inefficiencies. One can capitalize on them or be a victim. The lady in the BMW below may have done both. She is likely enjoying the ride in her Z4, but (according to urlLink this newspaper article she is also a victim of over-pricing--something that BMW, I assume, does not mind as they can have a higher profit. (One other part of this may be that BMW has certain 'import duties' over and above the government ones that need to be paid in order to sell their cars here, such is another inefficiency.) urlLink The BMW Z4...a pricey car in this town. But what about those who cannot afford a luxury car, a flat in Kangnam (the priciest district in Seoul) and an expense account at the local watering hole? Or worse, those who had it all and then lost it? What happens to them? Well, for some, the answer is suicide (hence my mention of urlLink BASE jumping (Buildings, Antennae, Spans and Earth) in the title. Since there are few guns in Korea (heck, many policemen do a urlLink Barney Fife and don't even walk around with a loaded gun, the bullets are in their pocket!) the next best thing is jumping. While inline skating one day near the river I saw police taking 2 jumpers from the water--ug,that was not cool. Sorry for the imagery. One thing that irks me about Korea sometimes is the lack of discretion in some matters (one faux pas I probably just committed above). We know that reporting suicide can lead to more suicides, but they continue to report suicides as they happen. Some of the stories are truly heart-wrenching and I (yes, even I) weep a bit when I hear some of them--this is not something you get desensitized to. If you're of strong mind take a look at this article on recent urlLink suicides . Of course, it's not just in Korea. In the urlLink U.S. military suicide is the #2 killer (I'm not sure if friendly fire or actual action are #1, you start to wonder sometimes). The interesting thing I found from reading all of this (not that it makes me an expert by any means) is that Korea, although it may have the 4th highest suicide rate in the 29 OECD countries, it was waaaay down the list globally (Korea always wants to be #1 compared to the top nations, which is why they probably used this statistic). Countries in Eastern Europe (although some of these 'suicides' may be underworld related), Scandinavia, and even the US and Canada, Hong Kong and Japan had higher rates than Korea did in 1994. (From Table 1 in urlLink this paper/abstract In true Korean fashion, the rates here went from 6.8 per 100,000 in 1998 to 16.5 in 2000 and 18.1 in 2002...man, does everything here have a urlLink logarithmic curve to it? Some also turn to urlLink murder , such as happened 10 years ago and lately again (and I'm sure there were other cases in-between), but that's another story. Perhaps this is just another part of living in a place where the past is meeting the future head on.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

13,July,2004

Koreans have an interesting saying when referring to guys like me: 기러기아빠 ( urlLink gi-reo-gi a-ppa, wild goose dad). Whenever I told Koreans that I was here and my wife and kids are in Vancouver they would call me this, and now I know why. My boss explained it to me quite well (although he called the bird a urlLink seagull , as many Koreans do). It goes like this: a goose flies very high in the sky (so does a vulture, but I guess that's not as poetic, nor as flattering) and has very good eyesight. Therefore, it can see things waaaay in the distance--which is good, because that's where a 기러기아빠's family is...across the ocean. It is used for Koreans who go abroad to work, as many do in the Middle East on the many Korean-lead construction projects there, for the many families that have the wife and kids in a foreign place (especially Canada, especially Vancouver...there are so many there) and the dad stays in Seoul, and for guys like me who come to work but whose wife likes Vancouver soooo much she can't bear to live in Seoul and put the children through such torture as is living here. It's just another part of Korea where things that don't make a lot of sense at first seem to be clearer once you get the whole story. urlLink The majestic, beautiful Canada goose.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

13,July,2004

This urlLink Korea Times Business Section editorial speaks of Jwa Seung-hee's (president of an economic research institute for the Federation of Korean Industries) 10 mysteries of the Korean economy. #1 Western-style economic reform has eroded the dynamism of the Korean economy. #2 Seoul has become bigger and bigger despite the government's policy of balanced regional development. #3 The rural community's life has become dismal despite the policy of promoting the balanced development of the rural and urban communities. #4 Income disparity has widened despite the policy of promoting egalitarianism and redistributive policies. #5 Competitiveness of small companies has weakened despite the policy of curbing chaebol. #6 Economic concentration has deepened despite the policy to diffuse the concentration of economic power. #7 The exodus of primary, middle and high school students for overseas study has increased as the government seeks to standardize schools. #8 Government control of finance has deepened amid sloganeering for financial liberalization. #9 The Roh administration seeks to scrap the Park Chung-hee’s economic development model, which created the Miracle on the Han River. #10 The government has strengthened policies, which would erode corporate competitiveness. To this business/economic list I'd like to add a cultural 10 mysteries of modern Korean culture, if I may. #1 Koreans often speak of love for their children and the sanctity of marriage but many men (and women) have lovers on the side. #2 Many Korean parents (or grandparents) insist that children marry Koreans, even though they send their kids overseas to study, or to hagwons (language academies) here. (N.I.M.F.T Not In My Family Tree) #3 Everyone seems to like the promise that is living in a different country, but very few can make the move out of Korea. #4 Koreans (especially the young) love the outdoors and clean air, but they hate to live in the country. #5 Korean students hate learning English, but older ones seem to love taking English classes. #6 Even after years of incredible progress Koreans always compare themselves to foreigners: the Rodeo Drive of Seoul, the Silicon Valley of Korea, the Harvard of Korea. #7 Most Koreans seems to have a negative attitude toward U.S. soldiers here (especially those who served in KATUSA-Korean Army Training with U.S. Army) but they don't seem to want them to leave (and leave South Korea vulnerable). #8 Koreans spend 10-16 hours a day (for years on end) studying for major exams but at the end of it all don't seem to have a stored library of knowledge to use in everyday life (or even at work!). #9 Koreans are very (over) protective of their children, and yet they have few child restraint seats and no one uses seatbelts in the back seats. #10 Many Koreans have dogs as pets, but many other Koreans eat dog! Another interesting story came to me from a friend of mine. A group of 20 or so young people were on the subway when it came to a station with about 20 older folks waiting to get on. The kids were sitting down in the seats, but without a word or any signals they ALL stood up together and offered their seats to the older folks. Unreal. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

12,July,2004

urlLink Paris Lovers...what a happy couple. Looking at Korea one can see something of a Leave it to Beaver mindset when it comes to relationships--especially in the minds of 20-something girls here. One could compare it (as I will) to a monk living life in a temple and then having everything changed when he starts to see what happens over the hills where he makes his home. Thankfully, some movies are starting to show that life may not be what we assume. Recently I watched urlLink Hi, Dharma! ( urlLink a story about a gang of criminals that hides out in a monastery ) and urlLink In-eo Gong-ju (literally means mermaid princess, but is translated to My Mother the Mermaid or Little Mermaid; a story about a daughter who somehow visits her parents when they first meet and fall in love). Dharma is a comedy where the gangsters find out something about themselves within the (relative) purity of the monks and the monks gain a new perspective from their dichotic encounters. Both learned that their so-called 'pure' states (of peace or brutality) are not perfect and they can grow from knowing one another. The daughter in Mermaid had a revelation as well. She hated her parents (her father seemed a dim-witted postal worker and her mother a cussing rubber/masseuse at a bathhouse). She wished she were an orphan like her boyfriend. An odd occurrence (I still don't know how this happened) put her back in time to when her parents met on urlLink Jeju-do where her mother was a diver (mermaid connection) and her father a postman. She comes to see them in their innocence and pure state--full of dreams and potential; not the broken and bitter people they became. A picture taken at that time shows the village in and around their first bus and her young father on his bicycle, smiling. The daughter asks her mother why he is smiling...and in the last scene her mother says, 'Of course he is smiling, what else could he be doing?' (or words to that effect). Yes, the young have every reason to smile. urlLink My Mother the Mermaid and Hi, Dharma! Mermaid seems to show that the 'pure' state of youth and promise is a transient one and Dharma could be saying that moving from purity may actually be good (adding another dimension for growth). This is something that some young people here don't seem to grasp...they need to have perfect grades to get into the perfect university and get the perfect job and marry the perfect spouse and have the perfect family (which means grandsons for many parents and in-laws). Perhaps in the future less emphasis will be placed on keeping up with the Kims/Joneses but for now many still aspire to a pure and perfect dreamlife. Of course, if they don't marry the perfect person Koreans can now urlLink get a divorce quite easily...which is another problem.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

11,July,2004

I must have been nuts. Every 2-3 months I take off to Canada for 1-3 weeks. My latest trip ended in late June, and I ended up getting into Incheon on Sunday (June 27th) evening...just missing the Canada Day party. (Canada Day is on July 1st, but they staged the party early so it'd land on a holiday.) Last year it apparently sucked and the beer was OB (local brew), not a Canadian lager so I thought I might not be missing much. Man, what a mistake that was (as you can see from the pic below). urlLink Canadian guys chugging beer...Canadian gals striking a pose. Click to see larger version. Here's your typical Canadian situation. The boys are gathered around the beer and the gals are lookin' fine. Hey! Why aren't the guys with the girls?!?! Crazy Canucks!

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

23,July,2004

Just so you know, this blog isn't about being political. If anything, it's about as apolitical as you can get for blogging. However, there is something that I wanted to comment on: you can use it to form your views or not. Oh, and I talk about some of the important points in here, so if you're going to see the movie bookmark this and read it later. Last night I saw urlLink Fahrenheit 9/11 (click for a urlLink local review and a trip to the urlLink warroom ). It was a pretty good film. I had seen a few clips from it so I had an idea of what to expect, which was kind of unfortunate. Some said 'you'll laugh, you'll cry' and I think knowing that dampened the mood a bit. It may have been better if I didn't know what to expect (and, sorry, now you know kind of what to expect so I opened a bit of Pandora's Box for you too). When getting the required popcorn and drinks (5,000 won, 4.50USD for a large tub and 2 drinks!) I was greeted by this guy (below). I had to say, 'That's quite a get-up you got there', knowing/hoping he wouldn't understand. At the door to the actual theatre a guy and a gal in the same costume did a little salute as everyone filed in. I didn't think about them again until the end of the movie. urlLink Soon he'll be wearing a different uniform. Fahrenheit 9/11 was a pretty interesting show. It tweaked a few memories I had from that day. When it happened I was in bed in Vancouver, just waking up. As a stockbroker I was wired to the daily news and had turned on my T.V. at 5:50AM. The news of the first plane was already broken and I was thinking, 'What the heck? Some moron pilot slammed into one of the largest buildings in the world? Was it a terrorist?' When the second one hit I think we all knew that it was no accident. I watched it all that morning. Waiting for the fires to be brought under control; or maybe for another plane to hit another tower. Who could tell what might happen? It was especially surreal for guys like me, I think (egotistical, eh?). My dream, as any guy in finance would have, was to be to be in Windows on the World (the posh restaurant at the top of one of the towers) giving a high-powered presentation to the money-men of New York and the world. That dream seemed more like a death sentence now. I don't know what the emotion was, but you might say I was relieved that I didn't go to Wharton or have a CEO dad who might get me into that room on that day. Of course you didn't have to be a financier to be there, many blue-collar people (firefighters and police) and 'regular Joes and Janes' were there as well. The next day I went to work. It was quite odd. There was little to do and there was an eerie quiet as the sounds of the harbor-planes were absent. All I could think about was the day before. I still wonder why the heck they showed the towers getting hit and then crashing to Earth so many times in the weeks following. It sure didn't help my spirits. Back to the movie. I knew what Michael Moore was up to when he made this film. His previous works included: Roger & Me (where he went looking for the CEO of GM (Roger Smith) for answers why his hometown of Flint, Michigan was laid waste by layoffs by the firm) and Bowling for Columbine (where he looked into the psychology of guns and violence that may have lead to the Columbine shootings). I saw a show or something with him as he went all over the country promoting his newest book and noting that the employees of the bookstores were basically getting shafted by their employers (part-timers with no benefits, low salaries, fired for small errors...hmmm sounds like Korea in some ways!). Now, I'm in finance, mostly of the idea that business is good, so even though I found the anecdotes he collected to be interesting and in some cases a little unsettling it didn't really change my thinking much. (I think most of us are pretty set in our ways unless we get overwhelming evidence over a long period of time.) I knew that Moore would be going after Bush, but I had no idea how much he had on him (or at least how bad he could make him look). Moore's 9/11 was, as a documentary should be, presented as a well-researched, factual and intellectual piece. It went into the histories of the major participants (although not much on Saddam and I was worried about how he said that Iraq never hurt an American: some of it smelled of hyperbole) and presented the facts in logical sequence. Then he threw in a curveball. He had a gal in there (a wife and mother) who, in the beginning, loved the U.S. and the armed forces a lot. She carried her American flag out each day to hang on the front of her house--careful NEVER to let it touch the ground. Later, after her son died, she hated what had happened in her country. I'll tell you the worst part was how she was given the news--it was OVER THE PHONE! I remember in urlLink We Were Soldiers the Army sent the notices to the next of kin by taxicab (delivered by the drivers, no less) as there were so many dead they did not have enough officers to do the job. That, I thought was a low point, but this story plumbed the depths. Clearly, Moore was not trying merely to make President Bush look bad (he made virtually everyone--Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice--look unprofessional, but he could have done that to any of us who have been in front of the camera). He could have easily made the soldiers in Iraq look like unfeeling grunts bent on discharging their weapons at anything and anyone (which, it seems, they did do at times, but that was chalked up to the adrenaline rush of being in a hot zone). No, he went at things on a bit of a different tact. He personified not only the soldiers, but something more identifiable not only for Americans but for anyone who had a loved one in any country's armed services--he made a poster child of those who are left behind (temporarily or permanently) when a service member heads off on assignment in this mother who lost her son. The mother (pictured below) is the real story and storyteller here. President Bush is a major figure, Moore is the one who brought it all together, but its her story that hits home more than any other. No 9/11 inquiry or senate committee can take away from her and her family's loss. Her husband said it best, though, when he said, 'We are very sad to lose our son in the war, but we are more sad to know that families all over America are having the same thing happen to them right now.' (I'm paraphrasing from my fallible memory, but I think you get the point.) It's the families that suffer(ed) when 800+ troops were killed in Iraq. (We also can't forget the loss of those in WTC, a disaster that was foreshadowed specifically in Presidential Briefings.)  For some their will to support the President and perhaps America itself may have been broken. I thought of our popcorn-seller (above) and how his family would react if he were shipped of to war, trading one uniform for another. What if my son(s) were sent off without an imminent threat, as we had in WWII and other 'respected' wars? How could you be proud of a country that did that to its children? urlLink Who is the main character in Fahrenheit 9/11? President George W. Bush? Michael Moore? or the mother of a fallen soldier? So, what is next? Will there be a sequel in a few years? Perhaps Fahrenheit 38 Degrees? (Meaning the parallel of latitude that splits North and South Korea, and translated to Celsius that's just 3.3 degrees--close to freezing, kind of a cold war, which is what we have here: a war, but no open hostilities.) I doubt, after all this, that Bush (or any U.S. President for the next while) has the political muscle to go after North Korea, and that's just fine by me. Heck, if anything happens Seoul is within range of the North's artillery (!), to say nothing of any missiles they may have that could get airborne (and if the U.S. says they don't have the capabilities I'm inclined now to think that maybe they do). Some things are different in Korea. For one, the two Koreas are still, technically, at war. Only an armistice (or cessation of open combat) was signed, not a peace treaty. I read the North signed it but the U.S. declined to sign it--hearkening to Moore's idea that the military-industrial-political complex needs a 'constant state of high alert and confusion' to reach its aims (which are, mainly, focused on money). I'm going to digress for a little bit here, sorry. Much of what we know as culture can be traced back to war. For instance, the Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford that former President Bill Clinton received was founded by urlLink Cecil Rhodes : one of the wealthiest and most powerful men of his time (so much so that the country of Zimbabwe's former name is Rhodesia, named after him). He made him money from exploitation of South African diamond mines--a country which was finally conquered by the Boer Dutch in 1902, the same year Rhodes died. As well, the respected urlLink Nobel Prize was founded by Alfred Nobel who made his money from a little product he invented: dynamite/T.N.T. A technological triumph that is best known as 'the thing that makes things blow up', as an explosives expert might put it. Back to Korea. Here there is really no question of whether the leaders are looking out for the people or themselves. A urlLink recent article reported that 74% of respondent to a survey of Koreans said they believe politicians are law-breakers. Maybe the same is true in the U.S., but 74% pretty much tells you that people here don't need a Michael Moore documentary to know what goes on behind closed doors. (I'm not sure if that is a good thing.) The difference here, though, is the threat. As I said, there is still a war going on. South Korea has a mandatory term of military service for all male citizens with an urlLink 18-month jail sentence for those who do not comply (of course with a criminal record comes no chance of a job with the government or any larger company, so it's actually more of a life sentence). In the U.S. service is voluntary, it may be seem coerced given the salespitch of the recruiting officers, but it is, in the end, voluntary. Those who are in the service and do not want to be (re-)deployed to a place like Iraq are subject to court martial and possible imprisonment. Again, the difference here is North Korea has been saying for over 50 years that they are the real rulers of the Koreas and they will take back the South; while Iraq did not make (according to Moore, I'm not sure about this point) threats toward the U.S. North Korea also does not have any resources (something that can't make the economy in that non-trading country very viable). Anyways, this is a record blog length for me, and I'm glad you came along for the ride. My last word is simply that after Moore's 9/11 movie I think many people, myself included, will start to ask more questions and make creating such wars (if I may go so far as that) harder to do in the future...and that, I imagine, was its intent.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

22,July,2004

Korea is, as you may have guessed, a hyper-competitive place. Once a store, restaurant or whatever they always make a big deal of it. One of the best ways they have to get attention is dancing girls. Ya, you heard right. Girls in cheerleader-like outfits dancing up a storm to hiphop in front of a balloon arc and inflated animals of some sort. It's really quite a sight. When my cousin visited here last year we saw 2 or 3 of these things...his 20-year-old brain was probably about to overload. This display I saw in Namdaemoon as I did some light shopping (actually I needed more hankies as mine was soppign wet from the heat & humidity here these days). Have no idea what this store is, but I was sure tempted to take a look. (Guess the marketing works.) urlLink Welcome to the Grand Opening of...um...I forget...where am I anyways? Then we have urlLink Bricx , a little place I've walked past but didn't see a reason to enter...maybe now, however. urlLink I'm not one for anime usually, but this one... It took me a while to read it correctly. Usually they say things like 'free drinks (upon paying cover of 20,000 won)' or something. I know urlLink Ohoo/Hodge Podge has free drinks for ladies on Thursdays from 10-midnight, but this one is a little more interesting. All gals in bikini tops get free drinks at Bricx on that night...hmmmm. I wonder what they'd do if I showed up in my bro/manzeer. Finally, take a look at urlLink Seoul Pub's video on urlLink 'Picking up in Seoul' on urlLink Seoul Scene's website . It's pretty corny...but mostly funny. The Aussie in the rugby jersey is a regular there (I mean like every night, which is probably why he's featured so prominently).  They've got another one called urlLink Bondaegi Challenge in which unsuspecting passer-bys are asked to eat....ready for this?...steamed silkworm larvae. It's actually quite well liked here. UPDATE: I didn't make it to the Bikini Party, but here are some pics taken at it: urlLink here and urlLink here .

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

21,July,2004

I was going to hold off on writing this until I had a ton of pics of some of the public urlLink washrooms they have here, but I had a pretty brutal experience in one today so I figured that was a sign or something. Here's a restroom to avoid: near Line 4 at Seoul Station Subway...unreal. As soon as I walked in I noticed the floor was dirty, which is normally ok, a little dirt isn't the end of the world. Then I noticed a pungent odor...really brutal, actually. If I didn't have to go so bad (#1) I might have bolted, but instead I just let it go...man, did I regret that. I tried breathing through my hanky, but it didn't work, the smell permeated everything. I was getting light-headed from lack of oxygen and barely made it out of there. Man, I think they cleaned that place last when Park Chung Hee was in power (1961-1979). Ugh! Below are some interesting shot. Take special note that they were all taken from the hallway of the building, not inside the restroom. Thus, anyone walking by could not only see the empty stalls (which is a faux pas in the West as it is) but also the user of it if it is occupied. Some also have a fantastic view from outside, just in case you want two audiences. urlLink All of these pictures were from the hallway, not inside the actual bathroom! The one below is interesting. This bar in Daehak-ro is the only place you can dance in the whole district (or so its sign says) but it's also the most interesting bathroom. There is a door/window right beside the urinal that opens out to the alley. It lets in a nice breeze, but makes one feel like a bit of an exhibitionist. urlLink On the left: that's a door/window that looks into an alley...and anyone can look in. On the right: in Lotte Department Store there is a bathroom manager and worker...posh! Many buildings have bathroom attendants but here they not only have a check-list sheet (as they have in the West in many places) but also the picture of the attendant that cleans it (I guess in case you want to pick them out of a crowd: 'Hey, don't you clean my office's bathroom?') and in the one above there is a 'manager' and attendant responsibile for the cleanliness of the washroom. If only they were at Seoul Station on Line 4's, I might not have almost lost my lunch.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

20,July,2004

Ah, urlLink the monsoon season has ended and thus begins the urlLink dog days of summer on the peninsula. I promised myself that I'd never be in Korea (and especially in Seoul) for this, but it looks like I'll be here for about half of August. Oh...my....God! It will be so hot. Many Koreans take this hot weather as urlLink an opportunity to take time off (what with the continued fazing in of the 5-day workweek here) and have some ice cream (there are so many awesome flavors here, priced from 500-1000 won, or just 0.45-0.90 USD!). Of course Koreans have a penchant for doing the moderately illogical as well. Today the owner of a 한방삼계탕 (han-bang-sam-gye-tang, extra healthy ginseng chicken soup) place ( urlLink not this one, but close ) came by the office. I actually was able to use my pitiful Korean to confirm that his place is in the basement of some building and that the price was 8,000 won (7USD, not bad). Then a friend of mine said it must be because we are in 초복 (cho-bok) or the start of the dog days. Anyways, as you may know, Koreans have 2 things they need in life: to be warm and to be well fed. Samgyetang is served literally boiling hot (they even have special stoves to fire up the bowls) so you'd think it's best served in the winter...oh no...Koreans love it best in the summer (as if it's not hot enough!). Well, this is Korea, so I'll likely have a burning bowlfull at lunch with the throngs. (When I asked why Koreans like hot food in the summer the only response was: because it's good for your health.) It'll make the air conditioned office that much more inviting. Oh, and another reason they call it the 'dog days' is they like to also have 보신탕 (boshintang) or dog soup. Yup, urlLink they eat dogs here (read story if you've got a strong stomach) . It's the typical Korean food reasons: it's good for men's stamina (as in: stamina between the sheets, the only kind they care about) and for women's skin (gals here are a little preoccupied with good skin). Many guys, especially older ones, and 'talents' (which is what they call any celebrity, star, singer, actor) dine on dog in order to excel in bed or in front of the camera.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

19,July,2004

urlLink Samsung has a new phone ...with a THREE megapixel camera. LG and Panitec/Curitel have similar ones out as well. The only problem is the things are about 700,000 won (600USD). So, I'll wait a bit until I get a new phone/dica (digital camera, as they abbreviate it here). For now, I'm having fun taking pictures of interesting things I see in this crazy place. Like this address plate. It says: 21, Yangmalsan, 5 gil or: building 21, sock mountain (area) 5th road. urlLink Building address in Yeouido aka Sock Mountain. I asked my boss (pictured below) about why the heck a road is called Sock Mountain...it didn't make much sense, even for this place. He told me that Yeouido use to be called Sock Mountain...why? No idea. Now the place is full of investment houses, the National Assembly (parliament/senate/capitol building) and (following the money) bars and brothels...no sock factories. urlLink My boss mixing SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY and Korean beer. The whole office went out last night for 오겹살 (oh-gyup-sal, or 5-layers-o'-fat-pork). We have a new company member and, true to Korean form, that's a great excuse to have food and (a lot of) drink. My boss, please forgive him, brought the bottle of 1950 Macallan single malt Scotch I got him on my last trip back and then (oh my God, I can hardly believe he did this!) proceeded to fill shot glasses with it and drop them in glasses of OB (Oriental Brewery, a local malt-maker) lager. Unreal. Now, my grandfather worked for Seagram's (and has Scottish heritage) and two of our suppliers are right from Scotland and if they saw such a travesty they probably would have throttled him--hence the pixelated face, a little taste of the witness protection program tactics he'll have to face for such an injustice to Scotsmen everywhere. (Oh, FYI, only single malt whisky from Scotland can call itself 'whisky' minus the 'e', all others are properly spelt 'whiskey'.) Good thing I had my cameraphone at the ready to take these breathtaking shots, eh?

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

19,July,2004

It's been a while. Been busy. Was entertaining a British friend of mine (originally from Manchester, now in K.L.-Kuala Lumpur) who has basically been ruined by Asia. You see, once a Western guy comes here he can hardly go back to life in the West...you'll know if you're here. Two other Aussie brothers I know had the same thing--they both work for investment banks in Seoul and Shanghai and speak the respective languages, to life is good for them, too. (Same effect for Korean women who go to places like Vancouver, they can't bear to leave that place either.) Anyways, his business partner (an Aussie) was in town with him too...first time...so we went out for a few nights. Also, some American and a Dutch friend of mine and some Koreans wanted to go out too...and then a couple of nights for business...like I said, been busy. We went to DaeHak-ro and had 서피동파 (seo-pi-dong-pa; seo=west; pi=(pi)zza; dong=east; pa=(pa)-jun, a Korean kind of omlette; together they are western pizza/eastern omlette) and 동동주 (dong-dong-ju,a kind of immature makkoli, or rice booze). Man, was it goood. The dong-dong-ju, it looks like porridge but tastes light (the porridge look is actually ice crystals held in the mixture, no idea how they make it so consistent). On the way out I almost invariably take the subway. It's fast, clean, convenient and is unaffected by the recent torrential downpours (it's monsoon/typhoon season here now). It's interesting, some stations are a little micro-city with shopping areas (some really large), links to office and apartment buildings, restaurants and almost everything else. They all have a few things in common: lockers (which I wondered about before, but now I've used them a few times to store things I bought--and at about $1 a day they're a pretty good deal), payphones (something you don't see a lot of overground), washrooms (some are better than others), a lotto booth and usually a little convenience store, gift shop, flower shop and/or food seller. urlLink Amenities: lockers, PC bang, escalators. I don't know why, but many of the subway stops here are spruced up a bit. They have things like (below) lighted signs on the air conditioner units, aquariums (they call them fishbanks here) and posters for the Seoul Subway Corp. that show scenes totally unrelated to subway travel. urlLink Subway Art: an air conditioner, a fishbank and a Seoul Subway Corp. poster There's also art shows sometimes. There was one for international children's art this weekend at Hyehwa station: I saw 2 good ones: one was from China and another one (aptly named Snow in Canada) was from my home country. Ahhh...a little piece of home. urlLink World Children's Art: China and Canada That's it for now...later.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

30,July,2004

Man, it's been busy lately. Out every night working (here that means having drinks with friends, clients, suppliers and partners (business partners, that is, I'm not into the girlfriend scene). Thus, all I've got today is urlLink a link to this other blog . Some funny scenes from the Seoul Subway system. Enjoy. Oh, and urlLink as I reported earlier , Bricx Bar had a Bikini Party last Friday. I didn't make it there, but here are some pics taken at it: urlLink here and urlLink here .

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

29,July,2004

Ok, you're probably looking at that title and wondering what the heck the connection is. It's tenuous, but here goes. First, these are four countries I likely will not drive in (although I did drive in the Philippines, or Phil, but that was in my younger days) the first three because of the amount of nuttiness I've either witnessed or assumed is there and the last one because I don't think I'd spend much time away from the beach. Ok, so about this Korean driving stuff. I've been here for almost 2 years and always get the question: 'do you have a car?' My answer, I think, is pretty logical. No, because (i) the subway system here is cheap, easy and pretty fast (no traffic); (ii) the bus system is not prefect, but once you know which one to take it's quite nice; (iii) our firm has a driver and urlLink Hyundai urlLink Equus for visits on company business; (iv) taxis are everywhere in this city and are pretty inexpensive; (v) my work is like 20 meters from home; and (iv) driving here is not like in Canada (either I'd cause an accident here or get used to this way and cause one when I drive back home). Thus, no need for a car. Actually, I try to stay off the roads whenever possible here. Perhaps this is for good reason, Korea has one of the highest traffic fatality and injury record in the developed/developing world. It's really quite amazing. Take a look at these articles ( urlLink here and urlLink here ) and you'll see what I mean. One reason is urlLink many Koreans do not use seatbelts (another article urlLink here ). Even I don't, when I'm in the back seat--especially of a taxi. It's really quite odd (and scary) that I always buckle up at home but take my life into my own hands when I'm here...perhaps simply because everyone does it here. People who do come here to drive have to get used to the rules of the road, as described in urlLink this article from the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. And if you hit someone the driver is almost always at fault in some respect (more on that urlLink here ). So, what's the connection to Greece? urlLink Korean drivers licenses will be considered valid in Greece . I'm not sure why, it certainly isn't valid in Canada, you have to do a new test and everything there, but for some reason Greece has opened the doors for Koreans to take to its streets, probably because of the Olympics. ( urlLink Apparently Greece is famous for some crazy driving as well .) But then, isn't that a brutal time for Koreans (or any foreigners) to be tooling around town in a rental? Oh well, I'm certainly not going to Greece anytime soon, and if I did I'd probably call urlLink George the Super-Cabbie . So, on to Phil. I went there with a bud in December 1998 (most of this file is classified, so this'll be short). One of the highlights was driving from urlLink Cebu City (where Ferdinand Magellan was urlLink beheaded by King Lapu Lapu way back when) to urlLink Moalboal , the noted diving spot. It was about a 3 hours trip on provincial (read: rural, goat/dog/child/rickshaw-strewn) road and on the way back Carlo was at the wheel. For some reason a dog was on the road and Carlo tried to avoid it (really, he did swerve like 3 times, the thing just changed direction again!) but, in the end, it became one with the rubber. Also, a kid jumped on the road and pointed a gun at us (I hope it was a toy, but you never know). With that I started to really question why I'd be at or near the wheel of a vehicle in Phil or any other developing country. Carlo and I returned to Canada safely and got back to work at urlLink RBC Dominion Securities where we worked (did I note that we started on the same day and had the same briefcase?) but within 2 years the both of us made moves to other firms. I was in Canada a while longer before coming here and Carlo went to first urlLink Turks & Caicos Islands then to urlLink Cayman Islands . He left then returned to RBC and, as you can see from the pics below, is an avid flagger, I mean flag football player. Ya, he goes long on the field and goes short in the office. (haha! a little finance/hedge fund humor there for ya!) urlLink Watch out Carlo! Looks like that big dude's got your number! Good thing it's flag football. Right now he's Player of the Week! Way to go Carlo! His profile is urlLink here and his league's site is urlLink here (Carlo, why is the domain dot K-Y??). Oh, and ladies, too late, he has a girlfriend and a baby on the way. urlLink Lookin' a little rotund there, Carlo. Well, that's the story, from crazy driving to driving to the end zone in one blog.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

28,July,2004

I'd like to thank my bud Peter in Vancouver for the picture below. It shows me that it's urlLink not just Koreans that are into voyeurism (although the Swiss version has one-way glass so people can't see in, and the Korean versions have none such discretion, it seems). urlLink Is it me? Or does she look like Martha Stewart? And doesn't that look like a prison cell loo? I was out last night on a 회식 (hwi-shik), which basically means a bender with guys from the office. We went to my favorite local haunt, Outsider. It's called a 'playing bar' in English but in Korean they call it a 양주이밴트바 (yang-joo ee-ben-t-ba, whiskey event bar). Basically, it's not a room salon but it's nicer than a regular hof (or local Korean pub). There are girls pouring the drinks but they are ALWAYS on their side of the bar (which is just fine by me). Of course that wasn't all that we did. We had 삼겹살 (3-layer fat pork, much like backbacon) first and went to WA Bar (when you say the name it sounds like the Korean for 'come here', very apt methinks) afterward. Man, I love living in Yeouido...at least I can get home within 50 steps instead of taking a bus or cab for 20-60 minutes to get home. Sometimes I think I'm a little spoiled here...but then I remember the pollution, long hours and compulsory drinking and I figure it about evens out. urlLink Um, where's his other hand!??! So, anyways, this morning I got out of bed at about 4am to do laundry (wild and crazy guy that I am). I was still drunk, obviously, and ended up not checking my shirt pocket for the namecard (that's what they call business cards here) of the new guy (the one on the left in the pic; the middle guy, Yoon, is our new recruit and the guy on the left is Jo-last name-by the way, I think Jo should have the English name of Danny or Daniel, what do you think?). So, it got washed...damn. Well, at least I know what he looks like. Him, Yoon and I are all born in the same year, but I am a few months older, so we can be friends. It's odd here, even a year or so difference and you're considered on a different plane in some respects. Jo is our junior...so we have to take care of him/get him plastered. The nice thing about being a little older is I can pull rank and make everyone drink. hahahaha! But as a 외국인 (way-gook-in, foreigner) I can also claim to be untouchable (in the good sense) if I don't want to do something. hahahaha! (But I usually do it because it's not a good idea to play the race card too much here.) I had to get myself some coffee this morning, but felt cheap (as usual) as there is wonderful urlLink Maxim Mocha Gold sticks in the office. I'm sure these things are killing me slowly, but they're just sooo convenient! Also heard that urlLink Starbucks just opened their 100th store in Korea (in Itaewon, actually). Yesterday was it's 5th anniversary in Korea...and I remember when I first came here (about 5 years ago, actually) they were just starting. In typical Korean fashion they caught on like wild-fire (foreign, expensive, addictive...what's not to love?) One last thing. Koreans have a special numbering system for counting things, but they can't do the same in English, it seems. They seem to think that 'th' comes after every number. My namecards say that we are on the 2th floor...well, we're not, the 치과 (chi-gwa, dentist) is on the first floor. Then today on T.V. I saw an electronic device that was labeled '2rd cable port'...at least they were trying on that one.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

27,July,2004

Last night I saw urlLink Silmido . Man, it reminded me of The Dirty Dozen. The (true) story is: the North sent a platoon (31 men) of commandos to Seoul in January 1968 to kill then-president/dictator Park Chung Hee (he was later assassinated by a cabinet member in 1979). Their plan was thwarted, but the South wanted revenge so they set up an ultra-secret crack team of 31 (always have copy, it seems) of their own. But, they didn't recruit from the general infantry or even the armed forces at all. The members of Unit 684, as it was called, were criminals on death row who (they found out afterwards) were already known as dead to the world and, thus, would not be missed if they failed (or if they succeeded). The 31 went through extensive and brutal training on Silmido (Silmi Island) but 31 real special forces members plus a commander. For 2 years they prepared themselves physically and mentally to 'slit the throat of Kim Il-Sung' (the leader of NK at the time, and father of the current dictator, Kim Il-Jung). The time to leave and complete their mission came and they set out to Pyongyang...but at the last moment it was cancelled. The Minister of Intelligence had changed and relations had thawed between the two Koreas (I wonder what catastrophe would have befallen this place if they had succeeded). With no reason to be, Unit 684 was to be terminated. The story goes on a ways from there, and everyone knows it..which may have been the point of the South Korean government. Imagine if a foreign power (and hated enemy) sent a team to kill President Bush or John Major...how could they just let it go. But, as in this case, how could they let it happen? This sacrificing of deathrow inmates makes sense from a political point of view. The South got to show that they were ready, willing and able to go after Kim Il-Sung, but, in the end, it would have probably put the Peninsula back in to a brutal and devastating war. urlLink Silmido and The Dirty Dozen: the true story is more unreal than fiction. At least The Dirty Dozen achieved their mission...but it was just a story, maybe based on Silmido, who knows?

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

26,July,2004

Yahoo! Finally, after being in Seoul for almost 2 years we closed our first deal. I had almost given up on this place/market, but looks like we've go our foot in the door. Never give up is the motto here. Reminds me of a client of mine I had in Vancouver. I knew he was quite wealthy and invested in my area, but it took 2 years to get an account out of him...for $500,000. He said to me three words I'll never forget: persistance beats resistance. Man, what a lesson that was. A friend of mine from urlLink Geoje-do (cool blog about teaching experiences on Geoje-do urlLink here ) came up this weekend with a couple of buds from the Island. One (Andy) has a friend in concert promotion and they had 2 VIP tickets to the urlLink MTV Buzz Asia Concert (sponsored by the super-cool urlLink iriver company-article urlLink here ) at Chamshil Indoor Stadium (which I think is the same as the urlLink Jamshil Auxiliary Stadium ). Thanks Andy! I had no idea it would be so packed. We got there just after 7PM, when it started. We read the part on the ticket about first come/first served, but missed the line about 'doors will be open at 4pm'. Whoops (Koreans probably made a day out of it and came at noon, knowing them). Well, the place was full, but our VIP friends were already in. The gal (Anne) came out and (owing to her sister who works with the Prince tours showing her the tricks of the trade) she not only got us into the stadium but into basically any seating area that wasn't already full. Thanks Anne! The acts were pretty cool. We missed the first one, urlLink 보아/BoA but caught the rest. Take a look at the pics below of BoA, urlLink Jaurim and urlLink Shinhwa . For all the boy bands/acts I tried to get the most masculine pictures I could for my site, but if you want fruitier ones they're all over their sites. (I sometimes wonder about these guys, but at least the girls are hot.) urlLink BoA, Jaurim and Shinhwa. There were a few J-Pop and Taiwanese acts too: urlLink Namie Amuro , urlLink Vanness Wu and urlLink Wang Lee Hom . There were a couple of others, but the names were in Chinese and I'm feeling a little lazy now. urlLink Namie Amuri, Vanness Wu and Wang Lee Hom. So, as you know, Koreans love to get together and eat and drink, that's why the after-party was so cool. It was in the uber-tony area of urlLink Apkujungdong . It's home of the highest priced real estate (and women) in all of Korea. Yes, I'm sure I saw many genuine Fendi bags and plastic bodies. The best part was the 2 free drink tickets. Ah, there's the Scot in me speaking again. The next day we hung out in lovely urlLink Yeouido Park (another review urlLink here ) where we fed the birds (below). It reminded me of the flocking to the afterparty/bar/dancefloor the night before...birds of a feather and all that. urlLink The gatherings: concert, afterparty, in the park. urlLink Here's another flocking ...of Koreans to the beach in Pusan. I think the caption says there are 1,000,000 people there at the beach (about 2/3 of the population of the Vancouver area). I wouldn't put it past them. And my final comment on this topic: credit cards. urlLink This article on how Koreans were lured by the notion of 'easy money/credit' (fanned somewhat by the card companies' desire for market share at any cost) and hwo it almost lead to suicide for these three individuals (sadly, many of also 'succeeded' in passing on their debts to their heirs, as happens here when a debtor dies).

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

06,August,2004

urlLink As promised yesterday , last night I saw a Korean horror movie: urlLink 분신사바/Bunshinsaba . First, though, there was time to kill before the movie so a little sam-gyup-sal was in order. We went to Don Don Restaurant in Jong-no (downtown) where there was an interesting concept. It's on the fourth floor and is entirely open-air...but they still had fans and air conditioners on full blast, too. Also, the condiments (쌈장/ssam-jang or bean paste, 상추/sang-choo or lettuce, 미역국/mi-yok-gook or kelp soup and other goodies that are hand-delivered in most restaurants were self-service after the initial place-setting. This was cool for me as (i) I love 쌈장 and 상추 with my pork and (ii) we were seated right next to the buffet. They also cut the pork right in front of you (Koreans are always trying to differentiate themselves, especially regarding food). Trouble is, it kinda reminded me of urlLink Lorena Bobbit ...dooough! Next stop was ice cream at LG25 (LG's answer to 7-11...is it really open 25 hours a day?) and try my hand at shooting a Gatling gun. Not a real one, mind you, it shoots pellets. (I'd like to see how my G.I. buddies do at that one.) Of course, the place was staffed by 2 little Korean gals (all the better to lure in the men), one of which was a pretty good shot with the Beretta. urlLink Cutting the Pig; Shooting the Gatling; Scaring the Girls They say that fear for Koreans is different from us Westerners ( urlLink see article ) but I think it had many similarities to the Western genre...although the setting and plot was a little different. I won't reveal too much, but let's just say that the director did a good job of creating a lot of suspense and fright in that theatre. There was one gal there who went just berserk at about every scary scene (especially in the beginning) and everyone laughed after each outburst. I think she was scared enough for the whole room. Hahaha. Just hilarious. Without that comic relief it would have been a lot scarier, I think. urlLink Scenes from the movie...walking...a hand...raising her face (!)...then the final scene...and afterward. Some pics above from the film--sorry, figured out my zoom after the first couple, and the lighting, as you might imagine, was not optimal. The effects were minimal compared to I, Robot but very, very effective for this movie. Afterward I took a picture of a lighted billboard. The girl in the white dress wasn't there when I took it...she must be a ghost! Ok, that's a joke, but it sure sounds scary. 푸하하하!

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

05,August,2004

I came across this in my daily readings of Korean news and sites...just trying to get a handle on this place. urlLink The anti-traditional Korean lady...holy crap, they look strong! And push-ups! More pics on urlLink the site (it's all in Korean, but no translation needed for the images. Now, I knew that Korean women are strong in spirit, but had not seen many like this. Most Korean men like their gals to be smaller, weaker (well, most guys do, it's just more prevalent here) so it takes real...um....balls for a gal to go into this sport. I don't mind it, myself. Maybe because even when muscle-bound Korean women still look relatively dainty--at least compared to their Western-lady body-building counterparts who start to look a little horsey.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

04,August,2004

Seoul is a pretty good place for outdoor activities, as long as you live in the right part of town (which I do, thank you!). There are a few parks around but 2 of the largest are Olympic Park (a massive place that I lived near for 6 months when I stayed with my in-laws when I first came here...they were right in the '88 Olympic Village, which was nice) and Yeouido Park (which was like a parking lot before they revamped it and added trees and stuff). urlLink View of Yeouido Core; the park at 6AM one Spring morning...gorgeous; The Great King Sejong; and, to top it off, a guy sleeping in a gazebo. Take a look at the scene above...this is like a block from my home and work. Before the office moved to this side of the park these views were my commute everyday...a 12 minute walk from door-to-door. Pretty cool, eh? Sure it costs a bit more to live in Yeouido and there isn't a Lotte Mart (Korean Wal-Mart) to be found in the immediate area, but it's real nice here, I think. urlLink The Great King Sejong is credited with 'inventing', or at least causing the invention of, Hanguel (the Korean alphabet, although it's not really an alphabet, it's more a set of sounds put to writing...very scientific for back then). His name and image is all over the place, especially at schools. There is also a urlLink book store and urlLink securities company named after him. And what stroll in Seoul would be complete without seeing a guy sleeping on the ground or floor (as reported before a few times). This guy looks prepared, though. He had the presence of mind to bring a mummy sleeping bag and get himself in the gazebo (and away from the early-morning dew that is so prominent here in the Spring). For exercise, the little that I do here, I like to inline skate (as they call rollerblading here). Take a look at these shots: urlLink LG Twins Building, 63 Building, and Traffic! Here's the lovely LG Twins Building (owned by LG Group, formerly Lucky Goldstar, also owner of the LG Twins baseball team; there are rumored to be anti-aircraft guns on the top of these towers to help defend Seoul); the 63-story tall 육삼빌딩 (yook-sam (6-3) bill-ding) which houses 대한생명 (dae-han-seng-myung, Korea Life (Insurance), aka KLI by foreigners); and a couple views of how close you can get to the traffic on this path. It actually goes under the 88 (팔팔/pal-pal) Highway for a ways. Ya, probably not the cleanest place to workout, but it's all we got without going 1-2 hours from here. Many people actually drive 30-60 minutes to get to here , especially on the weekends and holidays when this place is a madhouse. On Children's Day I got a groin injury from dragging my skate so much in order to slow down for the (literally) thousands of kids on the paths. And why exercise? Well, there are a lot of fun places in Seoul such as Bricx (click urlLink here to see the Playboy Party pics...man, think I have to check this place out; wet T-shirts involved, no minors) and good ol' Ohoo/Hodge Podge (some crowd pics urlLink here ). More tomorrow...going to see a urlLink Korean horror movie tonight (with subtitles), should be interesting.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

04,August,2004

Man, how do I come across some of this stuff. Anyways, there are a couple things that may help get my buds over to Seoul sometime soon (you know who you are). Many have threatened to come here, and some read my blog and may be on the verge, but this should about do it. Here it is: urlLink Seoul, home of the sexiest women on the planet . (Not that they have a chance at meeting them, but they are in the city limits, apparently.) There's also the interesting theme parties they have at urlLink Bricx Bar in Itaewon. I've still never been to one, but the last one ( urlLink the Bikini Party ) almost got me there. The next one is a Jungle theme. Unga-bunga! urlLink Ok, she's not Korean...she may not even be in Seoul...but it's a mighty fine pic. Of course if you do hook up with a Korean (especially a Korean gal) you may find yourself a victim of 'the Coupling'. I've heard it's only with married couples, but I suspect that boyfriends get roped into this look as well. Watch out. urlLink Beware 'the Coupling'.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

03,August,2004

신촌 (Sinchon, an area of Seoul near 홍대/HongDae, or the university district) is a pretty cool place. From Yeouido the subway is pretty inconvenient, but there's is a bus that goes there and cabs are a cheap and fast option as well. A few times, though, especially in this warm weather, I couldn't ignore the urge to walk the 45 minutes it takes to get there/home. It's a nice walk: flat, across a bridge (usually some nice breezes blowing by) and you get to see more of the city and its people that way. urlLink Smoggy view; 2 black swans; impenetrable lock; stinky garbage (peeee-yew!) The pics above are from a recent walk. The first is a lovely view of Seoul's smog. This is easterly; to the west the sky was clean (owing to the west-to-east winds from the West Sea) but it was too bright to take a picture of. Below the bridge, and fairly numerous along the Hangang (Han River) are 백조 (swan) boats. People paddle around in these things, but not too often. (The mascot of Mapo-Gu, where Sinchon-dong is, is a swan; Youngdeungpo-ku, where Yeouido-dong is, has a duck sporting a necktie as its emblem.) In the summer months people even sleep next to the river (well, not right next to it) fishing, eating ramen, drinking soju, talking...typical Korean stuff. The odd spiral pic is that of a 'lock' on a gate next to a dilapidated apartment building. You can see that not only is it easy to open, but the material is nothing more than thin wire. I have no idea what or who this is supposed to guard against, but I guess someone had a reason for putting it there. While walking back home I smelled something pretty putrid. I mean really rotten. God-awful, it was. Then I stumbled upon the answer (thankfully not literally), this pile of decomposing trash. Where's a garbage truck when you need one? Actually, I take that back. Once in Daehang-ro a garbage truck passed by and let me tell you the smell emanating from that thing was 100 times worse than a few bags on the street. Worst thing was, it came toward us and it left a lovely stench-ridden trail of liquid behind it...fantastic if you're walking that way. I guess that's why the trash-heaver was running so fast beside the truck--he wanted to stay ahead of the reek. Anyways, yesterday night my friend Andrea's friend Travis came to Seoul with his Korean bride-to-be, 현정/Hyun Jeong. We went to a Korean tuna restaurant, then to 'my' Outsider (where he tried James Dr. Pepper : 1/2 pint beer, 1/2 pint Coke, 1 shot Amaretto dropped in and downed in 'one shot!') and then it was off to Sinchon for 산낙지 (san-nak-ji, living octopus) and 서피동파 (seo-pi-dong-pa, a mix of western pizza and Korean pajun/omlette) alone with 소주/soju and 동동주/dongdongju (literally comes from the fermentation process where dongdongju settles to the bottom of the vat and is separated from a clear moonshine-like alcohol by a thin layer of rice). Let's just say that we had a pretty good time and Travis did quite well for a guy who doesn't drink too much: not even a hangover the next morning. But then, we got home pretty early, at about midnight; on a weekend we'd likely had been out til 4 or 6 or 8 in the morning.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

02,August,2004

Forgot I had this in my phone/camera. Actually got a series going of this dude at one of these dance video games. Think I remember seeing them in Vancouver too, but this ones is not just feet but arms. There are lasers or something that sense where and how he moves his arms and if it's in sync with the instructions/music. The guy was pretty thin and the moves made him look quite gay. I wonder if he does these kinds of actions on the dancefloor...I wouldn't if I were him, the gals in the arcade/gameroom were really laughing it up (good thing the music was really loud). urlLink If this guy's got all the moves why are the girls laughing so hard??

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

02,August,2004

There are a few ways to beat the heat here in Seoul. One is to simply stay at work, but with the government-imposed urlLink 5-day work-week coming into effect (and since I can't really figure out why I'd work 7 days a week) that isn't a very viable option. You could go to the beach, but it tends to get a little crowded (as urlLink this story attests). Or, you can go see movies. If you do, though, as I noted in a urlLink past blog , get ready for some comedy--and I mean before the movie starts. One of my favorite theatres is the brand-new Fantaseum in Daehangro. The staff there have some pretty wild costumes. There is a Chipper's restaurant on the top 2 floors too (where apparently the food isn't so hot, but there's a magic show to extertain the kids). The Chipper's staff (even the guys) have aprons and lace collars on their uniforms, and the female theatre staff have, get this, wings. Ya, they're dressed as angels. See pics. urlLink Angels complete with wings and Squid...the whole squid They also all have this cute (well, hilarious is more appropriate) little salute they do when they greet you and say good-bye. They put their left hand on their hip, their right hand up (as if they're swearing on a bible) and touch their fingertips together while at the same time bending their knees. All this they do with a smile on their face. (If you don't get my description, think of a gay Nazi doing a Heil Hitler and you'll be pretty close.) Man, the things people do for part-time work. Oh ya, the squid is there for general interest. It's restaurant display. I've seen dishes with hacked-up squid in it, but not one with (what looks like at least) a whole squid on the plate. Interesting. Anyhoo, this weekend I saw 3 movies...one Korean and two Western ones (not spaghetti Westerns, just non-Korean/foreign). The Korean one was urlLink (형님들의 도시)목포는항구다 (Hyung-nim-deul-ui do-shi mok-po-neun-hang-goo-da, or Mok-po: Gangster's Paradise). It was a pretty entertaining film, although some Korean humor I'm still trying to figure out. It goes from serious to amusing to gross in like 3 frames. One scene is with these 3 minor gangsters who are so poor they have to eat dogfood, but it gives them the runs and later (when you least expect it) a serious scene cuts to them running into a single-stall public loo. Well, the senior guy goes in and prepares to blast-off (so to speak) but the seatcover falls and he lets loose on it instead of into the bowl. They show you the mess oozing from between the cover and his legs and even outside the stall where it envelopes the (bare, for some reason) foot of his junior. My God, is there anything more repugnant? These guys were kind of a show-stealer (or a party-pooper, depending on your viewpoint). urlLink Mokpo, Gangster's Paradise; King Arthur; I, Robot urlLink King Arthur was...ok. Lots of action and killing and Braveheart-like speeches, but I can only give it a 3 or 3.5 out of 5. If you've seen Lord of the Rings this one will seem kinda washed out. I did, however, find that one of the characters, Bors, to be much like my bud from Manchester, Alex. He also resembled Alex's business partner, Mark, but I met Alex first so he gets top billing. Reading about urlLink the actor, Ray Winstone, I learned that the character was much like the actor and both were like Alex. Life imitating art imitating life? urlLink Alex Bors and Mark...which is which? I, Robot was pretty cool. I think I may have read part of the book way back in high school (geek that I was/am). The movie had a TON of special effects in it, but (seeing as it was in the future) they all made sense. Things, for some reason, didn't seem over the top, but that may be because I've been desensitized by now. I, Robot gets a 4 out of 5...or, for those out there who are not into sci-fi, a 3 out of 5....hey, Will Smith is in it! Oh, and the naked butt scenes are equal opportunity: one of Will (but I closed my eyes for that one), one of the girl (but I told my wife I closed my eyes for that one). Well, that's it...a pretty boring weekend, for once. Actually got all the sleep I needed for once. I'm sure I won't make that mistake again for a long time.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

13,August,2004

Ok, it's not at all scientific. I was just taking a look through my millions of jpegs and such and found these two to be, well, eerily similar. urlLink DPRK's Kim Jong-il and U2's Bono Is it me? Or does urlLink North Korea 's (Democratic People's Republic of Korea/DPRK) 'Dear Leader' look at least a bit like urlLink U2 's Bono? Of course they have some pretty different ideas about human rights and the environment but I get the feeling that being in the public eye for so long, the throngs of adoring fans (well, in Kim's case adoring may be a stretch) and accompanying entourage/roadies may have made them both a little distant from work-a-day realities. At least Bono doesn't require visitors to put urlLink flowers at the foot of massive statues of his father , though. urlLink Here's an interesting story that's sure to attract an obliquely-worded press release from the North.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

12,August,2004

Just in time for Mel Gibson's urlLink The Paparazzi movie, here is a candid shot of Tommy from urlLink 하나둘셋/hana-dool-set (1-2-3) fame! urlLink It's Tommy! Actually, he's on the snippet-show urlLink 'Wake-up' where he and a Korean girl (and a lovable muppet-like friend) say simple phrases again and again and again...all to the same music everytime. ('I'm hot...I'm hot...I'm cold...I'm cold...I'm hhhhoooottt...I'm cccooooolllld') I tape it every morning for my kids back home and try to learn a bit of Korean...everyone speaks so (relatively) slowly on the show and uses simple tenses, which is good for us gringos. It was pretty funny seeing him...it was at Starbucks in Sinchon and I immediately recognized him (well, seeing him everyday with his two-tone hair makes him an easy mark). I was waiting for a bud and he was with a gal so I didn't intrude...but I did intrude enough to take this pic. I was going to approach him, but then I thought it weird to act like a fan for a guy who's on a kid's simple English program; but I'm sure if my friend showed up before he left I'd have done something. I'll probably hear from his lawyers soon anyways, on account of the pic. It's tough to make out that it's actually him, so I doubt any of the local rags would give me much for it...there goes my dream of paying for my trip home with a snapshot. It's weird, you know. There are so many celebrities in Seoul (especially in Yeouido, as the urlLink MBC and urlLink KBS broadcasting firms are located here). When I went to that urlLink party after the MTV concert my friends said they saw lots of 'talents' (singers, comedians, actors, anyone in the limelight) but I hadn't a clue who they were. One time I was in the gym with my 장인어른/jang-ee-neo-ruen/father-in-law and he introduced me to this guy while we were in the shower...he looked quite familiar but given the surroundings I couldn't quite place him. Then I got it...he was the anchorman from KBS news (now he's the Washington DC correspondent). There's also a popular comic performing in a bar in Yeouido (I think he's a part-owner of the place) but I had no idea until my junior from work told me (he got his autograph, too). On another unrelated topic: urlLink remember when I said that foreigners are buying up Korean companies? Well, urlLink looks like they've bought about 44% (!) of the stocks on the Korean Stock Exchange. Wow, can you say takeover? What would happen if Americans bought large swathes of Canadian companies? Oh, ya, they already have. Anyways, some Koreans are calling foul (forgetting that you can't have capitalism without capital. The craziest idea is the one to levy a tax on the investing funds...ya, right...as soon as that gets serious many foreigners'll just sell pre-emptively and pull the rug out from many of the firms (not to mention the economy) here. Of course there'd be calls to prohibit capital from leaving Korea (as there was in the Park Chung Hee era (1961-1979) when emigrants could only take about $20 with them when they left the country--although I'm sure that didn't apply to government-types). That kind of thinking would put Korea about 10-20 back from where it is (which is, in many areas, 5-15 years back from the West). That was close, almost sounded political there. Just so you know, I don't make this blog a sounding board for my political views, however when it comes to economics and business I think I have a relatively educated and experienced opinion...so be prepared to be bored (or aroused, depending on your view of the dismal science) every once in a while.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

12,August,2004

Man, with all that is going on I can see my posting to the ol' blog getting bogged down the next couple of week. Got a ton of stuff to do at work as well as the trip (at which time I'll be in full-Daddy mode for the duration) which means precious little time to blog. Well, we'll see how much I can relate to you from Canada. In the meantime, take a look at urlLink Shawn's blog . He's got some funny stuff to say usually, although lately he's been a little infatuated with taking pictures of his chubby bod (for those of you who know...we have similar body types). Later.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

10,August,2004

Korea's pretty funny sometimes. Take a look at urlLink this article about changing the age of majority from 20 (already a year younger than the U.S.) to 19 (the same as British Columbia, Canada, but higher than the 18 that is prevalen federally and in some Canadian provinces). Here parents are commenting on the ability to take on rights and responsibilities at the tender age of 19. 'My boy is almost an adult now and the law now even considers him a man, but he has to learn his responsibilities and accept his own choices in life,' Han Ho-sun, mother of a 20-year-old, said. 'But what does he know? He is not ready to make decisions as an adult yet. And if he is granted too much freedom, I'm worried he'll get himself into trouble.' Other parents of young adults agreed. They nodded their heads to the idea that the government, before lowering the adult age, should provide training and programs to teach what adult responsibilities entail - such as building up a good credit record, making political decisions and getting married. ' What? 19 years? Kids that age aren't really mature enough to handle anything! Let alone complete adulthood,' said one parent who asked for anonymity. The first two seem pretty sensible, but the last one (if the name wasn't withheld) would be prime fodder for the urlLink Tonight Show's Headlines segment, I think. Then there's urlLink this article about the capture of an ex-convict suspected of stabbing to death two police offices a few days ago. This part deserves special attention: As police raided the house, Lee injured himself by stabbing his abdomen and thighs several times while holding a child and a 48-year-old woman as hostages to resist arrest. He was immediately sent to Ehwa Womans University Mok-dong Hospital for emergency treatment... What? Did I just read that right? The suspect stabbed himself enough to need to go to the emergency room? What was he trying to do? Commit suicide so as to evade capture?!??! Methink perhaps the (can I say vengeful?) police on the scene may have helped him guide the knife just a bit . Maybe he did stab himself, but it sure seems weird. urlLink Here's an op/ed on the capture and how it was handled by the police.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

09,August,2004

Ya, I'm off to Canada/Vancouver again soon...ah, to be back in the land of fresh air, real mountains and diapers. Luckily, I think my oldest boy is out potty-trained now. Not sure, though, haven't been home for about 2 months...and a lot can happen in that time. Now that we've done a deal here my boss/CEO would have me here all of August (well, all of the year, actually) but I have to go back as it's my younger son's first birthday, or urlLink 첫돌/Chot-dol (they have a different name for almost everything here). For Koreans the 1st and 60th birthdays are the biggies. 1st because the child made it through the often-treacherous first year (remember, Korea used to be really, really poor...so much so that is was a 100-days celebration as well, but that is starting to become less important as more babies are living past it). 60th because the urlLink Korean Zodiac is similar to the Chinese one...with 12 animals (ya, I'm a pig). There are also five colors which elude me at the moment, although I know two of them are black and gold. The Chinese use five elements: metal, earth, wood, fire and water. This year is urlLink Year of the Wood Monkey , which I guess is better than 1981... urlLink Year of the Wood Cock/Rooster . (Hehe, had to put that in there.) Anyways, at age 60 you've gone through all 12 years 5 times for each of the colors/elements...a truly magical time, I guess. Thus, by age 60 men (no mention of women) should have at least one grandchild, preferably a grandSON--one more reason to be happy that we had our oldest boy in my wife's father's 60th year! Now about foreingers (as I/we call all non-Koreans...even in Canada for some reason). Korea ain't called urlLink The Hermit Kingdom for nothin'. Basically, there are very, very few foreigners here. Something like 200,000 in a country of 48 Million. Most of us are (like me) in Seoul and (not like me) teachers. Others are manual labour workers from China, India and Southeast Asia (doing the urlLink 3D-dirty, dangerous, difficult-jobs that Koreans feel they no longer need to perform en mass). Foreigners (or 외국인/weigook-in or 외국사람/weigook-saram) are treated quite differently from native Koreans (and likely for good reason in some cases). We all need to register with our local 구/ku (ward/borough) office and do so (i) every 12 months or (ii) if we move to another 구 (whichever comes first). We get an Alien Registration Card that has our pic and address on it as well as our visa type (teachers are E-2, I fall under E-7 or 'other worker, director'). We need the ARC to get a job, get a bank account or do almost everything else official here. But it's not the same as a Korean Citizenship Card. Some promotions, for example the bonus card for urlLink Fantaseum , is only for Koreans, not me. So I can't get 10% off movies or get bonus points there...waaaaaaaaa! Also, urlLink foreigners cannot easily buy land in Korea (although I've also heard that it just can't be done...not sure who to believe on this). urlLink Foreign investment companies, however, still did so --and did in great amounts after the 1997 financial crisis. (In fact, they were the first firms in Korea to EVER use due diligence/research before buying and developing land...Korean execs, it seems, did it based more on intuition than anything else before then.) It's also hard for foreign firms to get market share here--unless they partner with a local firm such as Otis did with LG Group concerning elevators and escalators. Heck, foreign car makers have just urlLink 3% of the local market ! (Not counting GM's recent purchase of Daewoo Motors, which is a small player anyways.) One thing foreigners have had some success in doing is buying all or parts of troubled Korean companies. Korean firms put off foreign investment as long as possible, but in the end they can take on foreign investors-- urlLink 대한생명/DaeHan sengmyung/Life aka Korea Life Insurance is 5% owned by Australia's largest bank, urlLink Macquarie Bank . Korean firms, however are loathe, it seems, to disclose what most purchasers would consider to be important facts about the businesses. urlLink 교보생명/Kyobo Sengmyung/Life apparently had months of due diligence done on it by urlLink buyout firms , but in the end not enough was known to do a deal. Foreign firms have been able to urlLink buy billions of USD in Korean stocks , urlLink SK Life , urlLink large portions of Korean banks , urlLink other firms and one ( urlLink PCA ) is urlLink in the running to buy urlLink 대한투자증권/DaeHan Tooja Jeunkwon/DaeHan ITC/Investment Trust Company aka Daetoo (names here can get pretty long and complicated) though, so there is some opening up of this place. Funny, the longer I'm here, the more normal all of this seems...not sure that is a good thing.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

09,August,2004

Ah, finally...someone else I know is coming here from Canada for a visit. First was my cousin, Lars in May of 2003. He came at the perfect time. Weather was getting warm, but not unbearably hot and urlLink Children's Day and Buddha's Birthday were celebrated (day off) during his time here too. That was cool. Here are some pics from his visit. We did almost everything you could as a tourist for a short visit (but light on the bar scene as I was not as educated as I am now on it...and he was so young and impressionable at the time). urlLink Welcome to Korea...you must have SARS; Seoul City Hall traffic square; urlLink Myoungdong on the weekend; kids and wooden swords @ Korean Heritage Museum; us at the urlLink Korean Folk Village ; on urlLink the bus heading to urlLink Incheon Airport . He had a fever (from a normal cold) a few days before he got here, so that and the general lack on English language ability by almost everyone here lead him to be delayed getting out of the airport by over an hour. Next time I'll give my visitors a little note in Korean to show the airport staff saying: 'I'm a top gamer from _______ please make sure I don't miss my tournament and speed me through customs quickly.' or some such thing--Koreans love their online games here; they even have a TV station dedicated to it. Lars had this to report about Korea (and he's flown about 1,000,000 miles thus far): it's similar to Europe, but just LOTS more people. The second person was a guy I met through a teacher in urlLink Pusan/Busan I know through a friend of mine in urlLink Nanaimo (my old roommate, actually; funny how things seem to dovetail as we get on in years). Anyways, her sister's bud is getting married to a gal in urlLink Taegu/Daegu and wanted some pointers on how to not screw-up in front of the in-laws-to-be. He was here for a week or so and in Seoul for a couple of days...but I think urlLink we crammed a week of drinking into one night . urlLink Yusheng should have a good time here and should be here sometime in the fall, date to be determined. The guy's some kinda world traveler and he takes urlLink some pretty cool pic of architecture wherever he goes. I've noticed that many of them are devoid of human presence...something he'd be challenged to do in Seoul. There's always people around you here no matter the time or place. If you want to see some cool shots of my other hometown, Vancouver, take a look urlLink here . Ok, time to get my urlLink pubmaps out and plan Yusheng's course.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

08,August,2004

I think if I'm going to claim 여의도/Yeouido as my new hometown I should know something about it...and by extension you should too. I've got a little more to add to my urlLink background on it thus far . As you may know, ~do can mean two things in Korean. One is: province, such as 경기도/Kyunggi-do. The other is island, such as 제주도/Jeju-do (also spelled Cheju-do, depending on what era the map or publication was edited in...things changed in 2002, just in time to confuse the heck out of tourists coming here for the World Cup). Since Yeouido (also spelled Youido, Yoido and Yeoido) is pretty tiny and part of 영등포구/Youngdeungpo-ku (ku is like a ward or borough such as Queen's or The Bronx) the ~do here signifies that it's an island. I had no idea that its ~do was 'island' because it looks as though they've filled in or paved over much of the water that once separated Yeouido from the mainland. Anyways, way back when Yeouido used to be on the outskirts of Seoul and it housed the countries first real airport. (Later urlLink Gimpo/Kimpo Airport was built in the new outskirts of Seoul and now, since the city is not getting any smaller, urlLink Incheon Airport is the new International airport for Seoul; although Kimpo still handles much of the domestic traffic.) In fact, urlLink Yeouido Park , which until 1996 or so was a slab of pavement instead of the picturesque park that it is, was the runway of that airport! So, here in West Yeouido, near the park, is where the streets are named 양말산/Yang-mal-san or 'sock mountain'. I got to thinking why it would be called sock mountain...there wasn't a sock factory here to my knowledge and I hadn't heard a story about removing one's socks for any reason (although I wouldn't dismiss it if I heard it; there are so many different traditions here). When I heard about the airport I came up with this theory: sock mountain is the hill (here they call a mountain what we in Vancouver would call a knoll, I find) where urlLink the windsock was placed. Make sense? For more exciting and ground-breaking news stay tuned to this blog.

male

InvestmentBanking

Aquarius

08,August,2004

Being gay in Korea is like being gay in the U.S. military...in 1950. Let's just say that it's not near as lovingly embraced as in the West/US. Gays marrying in Korea? C'mon! There are no Korean gays! Of course, if one is gay one can hardly be Korean. I'm not trying to piss of PCers out there, this is just the way many Koreans (especially men and older ones) think. Although the younger generation are more open to other ideas, it's the older generation that controls politics, education, finance, and even media and culture to a large degree. The CEOs of the TV stations are all men and all old guys, as an example. Things are changing, though, as evidenced in this poster for a gay bar in Itaewon. (Now that you know its name you can either (i) know where to go or (ii) know where to avoid depending on your preference.) urlLink Yikes! Here are a few websites on gays in Korea: urlLink here and urlLink here . urlLink This blog has a tongue-in-cheek explanation of what being gay is...basically a primer in ' urlLink gaydar ' (how to recognize a gay in Korea or elsewhere). However, I think that many of the guys here have gay characteristics. It's pretty weird sometimes. In a business meeting one guy from a partner firm put his hand on my leg (just above the knee) as he spoke of my experience in finance and what I do for the investment process. This would be outrightly gay, but in Korea it's ok...it just shows (non-sexual) fondness and a measure of trust between two people. My boss does it also...much to the surprise of foreigners in our group...but, again, it's not 'gay' its just the culture here. My wife's uncle holds my hand, too...and not for 2-3 seconds; for 2-3 minutes. At first I thought it was pretty weird, but it just means that he really likes me. (Having said all this I know I'll have to put up with a deluge of gay jokes when I see my buds back in Canada, crap.) Over here guys touch guys and girls touch girls, but it's just not sexual. Many young gals (especially) can be seen holding hands while walking down the road. Add to that the schoolgirl uniform and you have a formula for stimulation for most Western guys. You get used to it, though. I really wonder about some of these Korean guys, though. urlLink The Face Shop has a model on all of their (make-up) stores that's pretty gay looking. There are others as well. These guys are (I hope) more urlLink metrosexual than homosexual, although the distinction is greying. Many of the boy bands have similar dudes in them-the clothes, the hair, the dance moves. I got to really wonder sometimes. (Remember urlLink this guy? ) Perhaps because of the stigma attached to being gay in Korea most gays don't come out of the closet--choosing instead to marry, have kids and be a 'normal' person or going into singing or acting or modeling and making the excuse that they're too busy with their career to find a wife. Either way, it's quite different from in the West where there is more acceptance of such things. On another topic: yesterday I had lunch with my CEO/boss and he mentioned that China and Korea were having a urlLink tiff about the Gorguyeo Dynasty . He said, 'oh, how can you know about that...it is just Korean history'. Well, when I said that is was about 50AD-600AD and was concurrent with the Paekche and Shilla empires and before the United Shilla dynasty that preceded the closely-named Koryo Dynasty of about 1100-1300AD that was right before the venerated Chosun Dynasty of 1392-1910 he just looked at me. Not sure if he got all of what I said, but a colleague dining with us said that I do, in fact, know about Korean history...hey, I've been here almost 2 years-and not all of it has been in the bars. My dates of Koryo are a little off, but if you want more information of where Korea came from take a look at urlLink this site . It has a cool timeline...just right if you're writing a report! So, if you're speaking with a Korean don't be surprised if they assume that since you're a foreigner you can't know precisely anything about Korea--and if you do know some facts or stories from its history you can really impress them well here. Oh, and just for the record: I'm not gay.