Blogs and Books

안녕하세요!

It seems that I spoke a bit too soon in regards to my complaints on lack of information concerning certain areas of life in Korea. I'd like to recant and restate my original complaint.

It is not that there is not information on any of the previous things I mentioned, but organization is certainly a problem. The majority of information is presented on blogs which, while archived, are not necessarily easily navigated. However, I'm certainly happy to have discovered so many ROK EXPAT blogs.

The majority of blogs that I came across were linked from sites like pusanweb, and Kiss My Kimchi.

I have to say that, so far, my favorite blog is The Grand Narrative written and maintained by James Turnbull.

I was extremely pleased to come across a blog centered around some of my interests: gender and sexuality, media, pop culture, and Korea. Having gotten so interested in pop/media culture with focuses on gender and sexuality while studying in Japan, I've been looking for information and reading material. Unfortunately all I've been able to find via my limited resources (I live in the south, there's not exactly a section in any of the libraries here dedicated to modern asian culture) has been centered mainly around rural and aged communities of the 1950's or so.

From what I can tell from the first page of articles, Mr. Turnbull presents a plethora of interesting theories and ideas concerning the sociological aspects of gender and sexuality in Korea via media outlets. Some of them I don't entirely agree with (only on a general gender concepts level) but hey... welcome to the world of academic ideas.

Of course I have no actual experience yet with Korean culture, outside of my interactions with the SILC Korean students, and I was, unfortunately, not able to study it while attending the UofA. The only Asian Studies/Anthropology courses offered there were centered around Japan and China, surprise surprise.

Well, anyone even slightly interested in ideas of pop media culture and gender and sexuality of Asia will be interested in The Grand Narrative.

Aside from all of that, I'm excited about getting the opportunity to sit down and read through "Living Abroad In South Korea" written by Jonathan Hopfner as part of the "MOON Living Abroad" series of information books.

I had originally ordered it via Books A Million but it's a week past the original arrival date that I was given by the associate and I needed the 18.95 for something else. Luckily for me my local library was kind enough to accept my book request and the book came in on the 24th. Hooray for the kindness of small county library directors. Why do I consider it kind? Well, I can almost guarantee you that I was the only one interested in the Library purchasing that kind of book. A one person library book request was granted. I find that pretty neat. This makes up for the library card renewal chaos last year.

For some reason I've continued to think for a while that this coming Tuesday would be the 3 week mark before my departure to Korea. I realized today with excitement that this coming Tuesday is actually the 2 week mark. Not entirely sure how I ended up a week behind, but hey, you know.

Also, I'm not entirely sure yet whether or not I'm going to make the move, but I'm contemplating switching this particular blog over to word press just because of the upgrade options available. The decision hasn't been made quite yet, but I'll let everyone know if that's what I decide. In other news The Autumnal Butterfly will remain on Blogger.