Kimchi News

After spending some time here in Korea, I've begun to notice some behavior patterns.  These behaviors may be humorous, irritating, slightly racist ("they're just curious" if you mention it to Koreans), or some combination of the three.  When I worked with my good American friend here, we would point out and vent to each other about these actions, as a sort of "buddy therapy" system.  These behaviors can become quite stressful.  Now that I don't work with him or see him as much, I needed to find a new avenue to express my stress in a healthy way.  I came up with two possible options: 1. punching faces or 2. creative writing.  With the possibility of deportation and/or getting my ass kicked, I decided option 2 was the much better route.  Inspired by The Onion, I came up with the idea of Kimchi* News.  Like The Onion, my news stories are fictional, names and places were made up by me, but the stories are inspired by actual observations I've made here.

*note: kimchi is a pickled/spiced cabbage side dish, and basically the national food here.  Koreans say it's not a meal without kimchi (and rice).  Well now it's not news without kimchi.  So without further ado here is the first edition of Kimchi News:

Layout by Eve Kim

Acting like a big shot

Since I've returned to Korea I've been fortunate to have some pretty cool opportunities come my way! It goes back to my first year here.  I was standing on the street near a university, when a woman approached me and asked if I've ever done any modeling (nice pick up line lady, like I haven't heard that before*... [*actually I haven't]).  I said no, and she asked if I'd like to.  I said yes; but with my previous schedule I never had time to do any of the jobs.  In the past month though I've been able to do three different jobs in the modeling/acting realm.  

Surprisingly they've been for some big companies too.  The first was a small part in a 30 minute promotional video for Hyundai Elevator company.  I had a non-speaking role as a body guard.  The second was a promotional video and brochure for LG and Ericsson phones.  I had a speaking part and some photos.  And the latest was a small non-speaking part on a TV show called Surprise.  It's based around historical world events (e.g. the Kennedy assassination was just on).  And they also do shorter stories with surprise endings, hence the title.  It's a poorly produced show, with outfits similar to those you'd see in a local high school theater production (and actually probably worse acting).  Most of the show is real historical footage, and little actual acting from the cast.  A note about the acting, we do just show up, with no idea of what the show, or our characters are about.  The crew gives us costumes and lines and we get to work.  The director encourages cheesy, over acting, so it's humorous in an unintentional sense.  However, it is a very popular show with Koreans, so it's cool to be apart of it.  It airs Sundays on MBC, one of the big 4 national networks.  My episode will air this Sunday, October 21.

Here are some examples of the work I've been able to do.  This video is at the Hyundai Elevator shoot:

Clockwise from top left: Hyundai Elevator crew; me and the other
bodyguard protecting the "CEO"; at the LG/Ericsson shoot

Surprise show, clockwise from top left:
18th century outfit (minus the nikes and smartphone);
the crew; as a cop; MBC logo