(Update 3: A big hello, but apologies to all readers from the Marmot's Hole wanting more information about the fire at Namdaemun. After I made the link, I realised that it wasn't really relevant to this post and so decided to remove it, but the trackback is still showing up there. Sorry)

(Update 2: Watched the videos. Completely slapstick and childish like most Korean comedy, but then I've been here so long that I was grinning through most of them. They'll more than do in lieu of a promised second translation today (Sunday). Anyone that doesn't believe I watched them, then you can see the first screenshot below for yourself at 7:59 of part 1, and the second one at 6:14 of part 2. Hyori also gets asked her favorite male body part at 4:27 of part 2, and from about 6:30 onwards starts feeling up the male contestants...no wonder she's such a popular show host)

(Update 1: Following Brian in Jeollanam-do's lead, I've just found videos of the show I mention here, and will watch them tomorrow to try to make some sense of the article I'm sure I badly translated review the Korean I've just learnt)

(Photo from here, with a title that literally says that although Hyori is now 30, never fear, for not only has her body not "died," but her S-line still "lives." Sincere apologies to readers for being so out of touch with the news, but I confess I had no idea that either were in imminent danger?)

Korean Study Plans 

As you can see, I'm back from my short trip to my parents-in-law's place over 설날/Solnal. My wife is staying on with my daughter until next Tuesday or so (I miss the latter both of them already), and if 추석/Chuseok from last year is anything to go by that will most likely mean that I won't be showering, shaving, leaving the house, eating three good solid meals a day...you get the idea. I'm a little tired of that (and look and smell it), so until she gets back I'll force myself into the shower every day and go down to Starbucks to study Korean, starting this afternoon.

Until now, my one hour a day of Korean study this year was no small achievement for me, but it's still inadequate to get level 5 or 6 in the coming TOPIK test, and I'm increasingly embarrassed at not speaking Korean fluently after nearly eight years here. So, the test is 70 days away, and I'll be studying three hours a day until then, I kid you not. Skeptical? Sure, I would be too, so I'm going to use this blog to make sure that I do. But don't worry, I don't mean by posting the entire minutiae of my study progress like last time, which I'll be the first to admit was probably rather boring for readers (sorry). Instead, one of those three hours each day will involve translating a Korean article for the blog, which I'll post in addition to my normal schedule of fascinating blog posts on other subjects. Conveniently for me, not every one will be short and merely say that some piece of eye-candy has great breasts, but longer ones that actually say something worth reading will probably take longer than an hour for me to translate, so I have a ready-made excuse if you don't see a translation up here every day from now on.

Women Turning 30 in Korea

I'm not going to pretend that I didn't choose this article because I like looking at Lee Hyori and because it's short and easy, but by coincidence I've just about to finish writing a post about 36 year-old Go So-yeong/고소영 for the blog ZR5 Asian News that I guest post on (Update: here it is), and her age naturally led me to briefly discuss the ajumma/아주마 stereotype and link that to what I consider Korea's relative lack of 30-something female entertainers. So with Lee Hyori turning 30 (in Korean age) and all, I was also hoping that the article below would mention something along those lines, although I should have known better.

ZR5 isn't quite as pretentious academic as this blog, and it's audience mostly lives outside of Korea, so let me ask readers here instead: was it too much of an exaggeration for me to say that there isn't a 30-something female entertainer who wasn't much more popular in her 20s? I'll be happy to be proved wrong, but I couldn't think of any. Also, are there really any Korean women hitting 30 who are so embarrassed about it that they pretended to be 29 for several years, or is it all a figment of my imagination brought about by the incisive social commentaries in Lonely Planet Korea? I would call my Korean female friends to ask, but it's late and they have babies, and besides which we probably wouldn't be friends if they were those sort of women anyway.

(Photo and article below from here)

Please forgive the mistakes in the translation, and feel free to point them out. My wife didn't feel like spending half an hour on the phone with me explaining it word for word, although my 20-month old daughter did her best:

이효리 "서른이면 선 볼 나이? 아직 괜찮은데" (2008-02-09)

Lee Hyori: "If I'm 30, it's time to be set up? It's not time yet!"

올해 서른을 맞은 미녀스타 이효리가 나이에 대한 고정관념에 반기를 들었다.

Lee Hyori, who turns 30 this year, will challenge the prejudice against women her age.

이효리는 8일 방송된 MBC 설 특집 블라인드미팅 대격돌 '스타의 친구를 소개합니다'에서 MC로 이휘재와 호흡을 맞췄다.

On the 8th, Lee Hyori cohosted a special Solnal (Chinese New Year) MBC dating show called "Introduce a Star's Friend" with Lee Hui-jae.

'소개팅 하고 싶은 여자 연예인' 1위로 선정된 바 있는 이효리는 "제 소개팅 제의인 줄 알고 출연한 건데.."라고 너스레를 떨었다. 하지만 "이젠 서른이면 선 볼 나이가 아니냐"는 이휘재의 기습 발언에 당황한 표정으로 그녀는 "아직 괜찮지 않냐"고 응수해 웃음을 자아냈다.

Lee Hyori, who was chosen as the "female entertainer you'd most want a blind date with," casually talked about what she would do if a blind-date proposed to her, and said that, now, 30 was not a marrying age. But Lee Hui-jae laughingly remarked on her flustered and embarrassed appearance when she said that.

이날 이성을 보는 신체부위를 묻는 질문에 이효리는 "얼굴을 먼저 본 뒤 손과 팔이 연결되는 라인을 본다"며 "옷 뒤로 살짝 보이는 팔뚝 라인이 가장 섹시한 것 같다"고 고백했다.

Lee Hyori was also asked which body parts she focuses on in a man, to which she replied "first the face, then I look at the line between where the hands and arms meet," and confessed that "seeing a man's 'wrist line' from behind, normally hidden under clothes, is really sexy." 

연예인 대 연예인, 일반인 대 일반인 등 기존 데이트 프로그램의 틀을 깨는 신개념 미팅 버라이어티 '스타의 친구를 소개합니다'는 연예인이 각각 자신의 친구(남자)를 데리고 나와 주선배틀을 벌이는 형식으로 진행됐다.

The standard for dating programs is to have entertainers with entertainers and normal people with normal people, but "Introduce a Star's Friend" is part of a new, more varied show concept in which entertainers bring along a male friend, introduce them, and then help them in the matchmaking games.

이날 이효리는 출연자로 등장한 연예인의 친구들을 인터뷰하기 위해 블라인드 뒤로 들어가 실수를 가장한 채 스킨십을 유도하는 과감한 진행으로 웃음을 이끌어 냈다. 망가짐도 불사한 이효리의 솔직 털털한 면모에 파트너 이휘재는 "서른이 넘어가더니 사람이 달라진 것 같다"고 혀를 내두르기도 했다.

In order to interview the other entertainer's friends properly without knowing who they were, she went behind them and spoke in the dark to the backs of their heads. Her biggest mistake while interviewing them was admitting that she prefers to initiate "skinship," or being intimate with a date. Lee Hui-jae jokingly said that her carefree but daring honesty showed that "people really change when they turn 30!"

Stirring stuff. She really is turning 30 though, and like I (will) imply in my post for ZR5, if Korean men suddenly lose all interest in Lee Hyori merely because she's hitting 30, then I officially give up on ever understanding the enigma that is the ajosshi/아저씨. But I'm quite confident that basic instinct will trump culture in her case, and who knows? However unlikely-looking now, she might be inadvertantly become a standard-bearer for the way women that age are perceived in the media, just like back in 2000 Baek Ji-yeong/백지영 became a feminist symbol via a sex video of all things. For more on that, see Time magazine here, and I place it into some context here.

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