From Kimchi to Pat Robertson

Frightening, I know...

Ok, random kimchi info from a treasure trove of a website I just discovered. This website is full of great articles, many of which are so biases towards Korea it's quite funny. Anyway, I guess Korea has trademarked this kimchi cartoon character and there's a section in the website talking about kimchi. Anyway, here's a brief description of kimchi (from the website) for those of you who may not really know what it is: "Kimchi is a product that is fermented through lactic acid production at low temperatures to ensure proper ripening and preservation. It is processed with a seasoning mixture mainly consisting of red pepper powder, garlic, ginger, green onion and radish." It fails to mention that the main ingredient is cabbage (generally, although there are also other types including radish-based ones). But I guess the "AFMC developed kimchi character on June, 2000 to promote the excellency of Korean kimchi and to emphasize the difference from Japanese Kimuchi." Again, the competition with Japan... This is the website's description and explanation of the kimchi character: "Kimchi character is expressed as fermentation food that keeps health expressed with oval that symbolizes nature, environment and diet food, and personified kimchi, the traditional food of Korea with various nutritions as healthy food." Ok, what the hell is that supposed to mean?? That is a huge pet peeve I have here. There's English phrases all over the place that don't make any sense. Honestly, there are tons of people in Korea that would be able to proofread material and fix phrases that make no sense. Other than the thousands of native English speakers in the country, there are tons of Koreans who speak English at a fluent enough level to be able to correct crap like that. Such as my co-teacher. Why these companies don't hire someone to proof their crap, I don't know. It just makes them look a bit stupid.

I was just watching BBC World and they did a little news story on women in South Korea. It was kind of sad. South Korean women are among the best educated in the world, but lag way behind other developed nations in the job market. I can't remember all the stats now and the story doesn't seem to be online (as far as I can tell, BBCWorld is the crappiest and most useless website ever), but the gist of it is that while many women have college degrees (I think a bit more so than men) there is a much higher number of unemployed women versus men (of people with college degrees...although assuredly without as well). And their pay is a lot crappier, too. And they're not taken as seriously as men in their jobs (much of it probably tied to their culture where men are 'more important' than women). It sounds similar to the US (and probably the rest of the world) but I guess it's even more pronounced in Korea. The only job market where jobs for women is increasing is for women who dress up in skimpy clothes and sing and dance outside newly opened businesses, restaurants, and other random events. I've seen this a lot, actually. It's weird. I'm going to see if I can find a picture of them on google images. Ok, sadly I cannot as I really have no idea what search terms to input. Maybe if I remember I'll ask my co-teacher what those ladies are called. But anyway, it was a sad story on the status of women in Korea.

Korea has the 13th largest economy in the world. Not bad for a small country that was economically devastated during the Korean War and prior to that was colonized by the Japanese. Right now the strength of the won to the US dollar is at its highest in 8+ years. I took advantage of that recently and transfered some of my money from my Korean bank account into my US bank account. Which, by the way, was a very confusing process and I have no idea how it ended up working...but it did, so yay for me.

I was totally ignorant of the fact that the Olympics were coming up. I wonder how much I'll get to see here...in English. I guess that depends on how much coverage AFN gives it. And BBC World. Haha, I just went to the Olympic website and saw that one of the cities Turin beat out for this year's Olympics was Klagenfurt, Austria. Which, for those of you who aren't Badger basketball fanatics, is the hometown of Andreas Helmigk...who used to be a Badger basketball player. Anyway, I see that Pyeongchang, South Korea (located in Gangwon-do province which is directly to the right of Gyeonggi-do) is making a bid for the 2014 Olympics. Good luck.

Wow, Cheney's medical history is alarming. Four heart attacks, a quadruple bipass, two angioplasties, and an implanted pacemaker. And that's not including his non-heart related stuff. I don't really have anything to add to this, I just was suprised by it when reading an article about him being admitted to the hospital after having 'shortness of breath.'

Pat Robertson is a friggin' freak. He said that Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for "dividing God's land." He also said, “God considers this land to be his. You read the Bible and he says ‘This is my land,’ and for any prime minister of Israel who decides he is going to carve it up and give it away, God says, ‘No, this is mine.”’ Psycho! He's made many other freaky statements before, such as: After a city in Dover, Pennsylvania voted not to teach 'intelligent design' in their schools he told them, "If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city." He also called Islam "a scam...not a peaceful religion that wants to coexist." Yeah, like you're all about the coexistance of different religions. It pretty much seems to me that you're all about Christianity and only Christianity. Regarding Orlando flying gay pride flags he said, "...a condition like this will bring about earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor." That is quite honestly one of the most hilarious things I've ever heard in its absurdity. 'And possibly a meteor...' HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA! Man, that guy is a piece of work. Speaking of conservative guys that I think are moronically stupid, how about Bill O'Reilly? He was recently on Letterman and Letterman ended up telling O'Reilly that he thinks "about 60% of what you say is crap." Yeah, try 90%. The Daily Show had this hilarious video of him. In sum, he states that there's no way non-Christians can be offended by 'two little words' (Merry Christmas). He then immediately states that saying 'Happy Holidays' or 'Season's Greetings' is offensive to Christians. Wtf???? Seriously, does he not see the hypocrisy in this 'logic'? Sometimes I seriously wonder how gene lines that stupid survived the evolutionary process. Oh wait, evolution isn't true, never mind. :D