the road less traveled - a story i'd read

i figure in a day and time saturated with crappy reality shows, my life is as good as any... here goes.
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My friend just laughed at me for saying "I'm trucking along now! 8
pages down, only 86 more to go!" -- I don't get it. On a side note
I'm considering pursuing a joint masters degree at duke... Hmmmmmm

Back to hangul. ( just think joe, thus could be you! ;)

 

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Ran across this story today while hitting up Drudge when I ran across this headline "Groomed eyebrows a headache at high school..." Hmmm... Interesting. My first thought was maybe someone got beat up for shaving their eyebrows? or maybe guys were being teased for plucking their eyebrows... not that I'm against that, I mean I don't do it, but to each his own (I suppose :\). Anyways... I click through to read the article and come to find out that kids are actually using their eyebrows as gang signs!

Police say gangs have co-opted the trend for their own use, with one gang's members marking themselves by shaving one line into an eyebrow and three lines in the other to symbolize 13. (STORY)

That's AMAZING! Gone are the days of "slingin the deuces" and throwin up the "\\//\\//est Side!" Now we'll really see who all the posers are! ;)



You know I can't help but imagine all the fathers or "late 30 somethings" who are going to try to be "hip" and shave up their brows... Hmmm.. ran across this photo... poor guy, shaved a barcode into his brows... (shaking head)


...Yup it's definitely mid-terms week.. more nonsense to come as I try to avoid going crazy...
 

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So I attend church at a pretty cool place called Yoido.  Heard about it while I was in the states and so I decided to attend while I'm in Korea (and it's only 10 mins from my house).  I try to mix it up from time to time and attend the Korean service, but recently I've found myself attending the English service.  It's amazing how many people from different countries come and attend this church.  Today the Nigerian Ambassador dropped by with his wife.  And while I was going to take one of those "Handshake and Smile" pictures... I didn't have my camera with me and I felt a bit ridiculous saying.. "Okay Mr. Ambassador, smile for the handphone." Anyways, I snapped a couple quick ones... The guy in the black suit behind him is either his body guard/driver or his man servant. (Not quite sure)

...still working on the blog.. sorry for the mess...
 

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Reworking the blog over the next few... sorry about the mess.
 

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Well I was looking back through my blogs and I noticed that around midterms and finals there was a spike in my blogging.. Hmmm.. Why stop now right?

I want to address a recent article in chosun.com, a korean newspaper discussing the recent difficulties that web giants such as Yahoo, Google and Myspace are having penetrating the Korean market.  The article opens...
Is South Korea a graveyard for overseas Internet companies? American Internet heavies such as Google, YouTube and MySpace, leaders of the so-called "web 2.0" frenzy, face heavy odds in South Korea. Why is it that these companies boast astronomical numbers of subscribers and users in many other markets around the world but find little luck here?
The article goes on to mention Korean web giants Naver.com (by far Korea's top search engine) and Cyworld (by far Korea's top social networking sight).  I've tried to use cyworld in the past, as a matter of fact cyworld did a US launch and as far as I can tell aren't having the success they hoped for.  For me cyworld was a little bit too involved.  Let me explain: You have to build a character, decorate your room, hang posters, buy clothes, add a tv, update your furnature... All sorts of "nonsense" that mimic daily life.  I don't know about you, but when I log onto facebook it's to get away from daily life.  Next, I use google.com as my primary search engine.  Why?  Because it's no frills search.  I love more the fact that the google search bar is built into my browser because then I don't have to look at anything.  I can just type my search terms in the little box and BOOM there are my results.  Today, for the first time, I decided to use Naver.com.  And instantly, I can tell you why these web giants are struggling.    The chosun.com article states that...
Experts say the foreign challengers have failed to understand the peculiarities of the South Korean market. Their quality suffers in comparison to local offerings in terms of Korean-language features, site design and sophistication of services, South Korean experts argue.
After using Naver.com for just 2 search terms, I immediately began to wonder if anyone from Google ever did research on Korea before launching google.kr?  Let me use a couple of photo examples.

I did a search on naver.com for a movie I was looking for.  First challenge is I didn't know the movie title in Korean, I only knew the english version: Happiness.  Second challenge is I had my default keyboard setting set to Korean.. so instead of Happiness, it comes out: ㅗ메ㅔㅑㅜㄷㄴㄴ.  This is a common problem with people who have to type in two or more languages as many Korean people do.  Below are screen shots from the three search results.  You'll notice Google didn't give me the option to convert the korean into english and do the search based the mistyped version.  To Google's credit they did list pictures and news on the site.. but not so helpful.  Next Yahoo looks much closer to Naver (which might be why korean people are a bit more receptive to it?) Finally there's Naver, now you can't tell from these pictures, but Yahoo and Naver go on to list other categories in which the word happiness can be found.  (ie, pictures, movies, music, posters, tv shows, websites, blogs.. all broken down by category. ).  Korean people are an organic people, they love their dramas they buy the newest coolest thing, they flood cafe's to talk with friends until all hours of the night.  Any foreign company that comes in is going to have to understand this and make everything organic.  

On to myspace.  While I would probably argue that the success of cyworld.com is as much due to the "harsh coaxing" of the parent company (SK Communications) for all of their employees to create and keep a personal cyworld page, it is also because Cyworld is reflection of daily life.  This daily life is built within the construct of a communal society.  This is unlike myspace which is a reflection of daily life built within the construct of an individualistic society... 

Anyways, what do I know? I'm just a law student in korea, trying to learn the language, the culture, the legal education system.  Good luck to the American companies.. I feel they're going to need it.

Google.kr


Yahoo.com


Naver.com




References: 
 

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So I spent some time a few weeks ago in the motherland.  Well not my motherland (although the majority of my caucasian friends wouldn't know) but Chinese peoples' motherland.  And better yet, in Beijing where it all happens.  Or will happen.. this summer... for the 2008 olympics... so long as Tiebet doesn't interfere, or is it China that's interfering with Tiebet? I'll leave that to those who are more familiar with the matter :\  Before I get too far off topic... here are some pictures:

This is the new terminal at Beijing Airport... 

Unfortunately the airline I was flying on wasn't so cool and they parked us outside next to the service garage... (oh well... )

The famous Tiananmen Square

No, that's not a SARS mask.. That's actually my Beijing Duck Chef.  He's slicing up a tasty duck into little bits which I would place in a chinese "tortilla" of sorts with some veggies and eat.

Westin Beijing Financial District... Not to shabby...

Wangfujing the local night market was pretty amazing.  Not only did they have all the fried ice cream and caramelized fruit you could eat.  But they also had a fair share of silk worms, scorpions and other delicacies.  I'm told by my chinese friends that they don't really eat that stuff but the foreigners dig it.  I should write for a moment on the shear dedication of the chinese workers.  As I was standing next to one of my friends, I asked "do you want to try that?" The chinese worker immediately responded in english "sir, it's very tasty you should try."  My friend responded in Korean "않이, 먹기실어" (No, I don't want any).  The same chinese worker then responded in Korean saying "Ms. com'on it's really good you should try it."  When the worker saw we weren't going to try some of his food, he turned to the hispanic couple next to us and immediately started speaking spanish... Now that's impressive!


The forbidden city... the week I spent in Beijing was absolutely gorgeous.. blue skies.. nothing like I was told it would be.. then again I'm also told the Chinese government recently planted hundreds of thousands of trees to prepare for the olympics... 


The Great Wall. Probably the biggest highlight for me, other than watching some crazy American girl eat a scorpion. It was absolutely mind blowing. I've heard all my life that it's the only man made object you can see from space... but you really have no idea the magnitude of this thing until you're there... simply breath taking...
HuTongs or narrow streets.  This little housing area is one of the oldest original housing areas in Beijing; it's located just next to the forbidden city.
Emperor's throne room in the forbidden city... (A little renovation before the herds come in for the olympics)

Old guy writing chinese on the sidewalk with water.  Pretty impressive.  (I'm told that it's a very famous ancient chinese poem)

Occasionally I hear people complaining that they're seated too close to the smoking section.  How's this for too close? (It's one table, half of it smoking, the other half, non).

Tsinghua University (pronounced Chinghwa.. I think?)  China's MIT.

Peking University (Beijing) China's Harvard? or Yale? wait.. I've got it.. it's China's iconic symbol of education.. so more appropriately, it's China's equivalent of Duke University Law School :D

Entrance to the forbidden city.. at night

Hope you enjoyed.
 

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Just thought I'd throw down a few words before my day gets started. First, I've met some new friends in the past couple of days, some really good people with a variety of backgrounds... I say that to say we were having a discussion yesterday over coffee... and I realized that I came to John's defense when the topic turned to his age of ~40. Hmmmm... I thought about it last night and I can honestly say that I don't believe 40 is old.. then again it's not to far from 30 right? :\

Next, I ran across an apartment building in an upscale part of Seoul... Made me think quite a bit.. I mean, in the US we're all about calling a spade a spade.. right? Well, except maybe when it comes to money. People buy hugely expensive cars and homes...yachts and watches... many so they can show off their financial status. Maybe we could learn a little some-fin, some-fin from Koreans.. I mean honestly.. if you've got it, might as well live in an apartment building that says it!



 

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