Tag: motherland

O PILSUNG COREA MOTHERFUCKERS

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

On this date, June 27, 2018

South Korea 2, Germany 0

I sat down to watch this game with pretty much no expectations.  With two losses already, South Korea was pretty much done already, but thanks to the low-scoring in the Group of Death™ they were still mathematically alive.  They just needed Mexico to blank Sweden, and to win their third game against Germany; you know, the defending World Cup winners, by at least a two-goal margin, to cover the differential.

Frankly, after their pitiful performance against Sweden, I stated that all I really wanted to see was for Korea to score a single goal, so that they didn’t go home after being blanked the entire time they were in Russia. 

They got their goal against Mexico, but I wasn’t satisfied by it.  It happened in the 93rd minute of the game, when Mexico was already up 2-0, so to me, it’s basically was a meaningless pity-fuck of a goal that happened long after Mexico had already begun the victory party.  However, it turned out to be an important goal nonetheless, because, due to the low-scoring of the group as a whole, goal differential turned out to be a big deal going into the final games of groups.

Basically, Germany wins and they’re in.  However, too many goals by Sweden would make things murky, as would too many goals by Mexico.  And despite the fact that they were dead last in the group, too many goals by Korea would actually have some impact on the standings as well.

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I wish I could have Seoul searched in Seoul

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Until it streams online, it’s new to me.  I just recently watched on Netflix, the film Seoul Searching, apparently released back in 2015.  Long story short, it’s basically Breakfast Club for Koreans, and there’s no mistaking the immense John Hughes influences throughout the entire film.

Instead of in-school Saturday suspension, the story takes place in 1986, where a bunch of Korean teenagers who grew up outside of Korea are brought to Seoul to participate in a government-sponsored summer camp where foreign-born Koreans have the opportunity to learn about the cultures of their parents’ native land.  The tropes are broad and prevalent, but there’s still a diverse cast of characters from the misfits, the jarhead, the adoptee, the tomboy, and the most mind-blowing to me, the Koreans from countries such as Mexico and Germany.

Now I know that quite a few of them exist in the world, but it really isn’t until you hear the accents and behaviors does it really sink in that Koreans did in fact immigrate to countries other than America, seeing Koreans ripping perfect German or Spanish with names like Sergio and Klaus.

Ultimately, it’s a film that obviously hits home pretty hard for me, given my circumstances as an American-born Korean.  I feel like if when I was a teenager, I probably would have rolled my eyes and loathed the opportunity to go to Korea to learn about my heritage, much like most of the characters of this film were like.  But as an adult, it’s all too easy for me to say that I wished that such a government-sanctioned and probably extremely affordable opportunity to go visit Korea still existed, for adults, like me, and that I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to be all over it. 

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Is this really happening?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Throughout my entire life, the Koreas have been at war.  The same can be said about just about all of my peers, friends and acquaintances.  Obviously, this doesn’t mean that there’s always been continuous combat for 36 years, but in the technical terms of the Korean Armistice Agreement of 1953, the fighting may have ceased, but the Korean War had never ended.  It’s safe to say that large chunks of the world’s populations have never known of a world where the Koreas have not been at war.

So it’s kind of surreal, almost strange, and definitely unbelievable the recent news of North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un meeting with South Korean president Moon Jae-In, and coming to terms and signing a peace treaty declaring a formal end to the Korean War.  It’s treading into waters that most of the world has never seen before, and it’s kind of amazing to think that babies born beyond April 27, 2018 will be coming into a world where the Korean War was not technically happening.

Seeing as how I am American by birth, and as authentically Korean as a Hyundai assembled in Mexico, I’m a little surprised at how much the news of the Koreas ceasing the war affected me.  I’ve only been to Korea twice, and know a pathetically paltry amount of the history of my ancestors.  Yet, reading news and progressions of the peace summit at Panmunjom really made me feel genuine hope, positivity and a swelling of emotion from within that I think I can only really explain as a result of my Korean heritage.

I know there are tons of people who are skeptical and untrusting of North Korea, and I’m most certainly not without my own skepticism and conspiracy theories of what might actually be in the works.  There are allegations that North Korea really fucked up on a missile test and took down a mountain, destroyed a major developmental facility, nuclear fallout, or all of the above.  There are theories that the escalating trade tensions between the United States and China have unintentionally begun to choke out North Korea’s primary trade partners, thus making them suffer, forcing them to become desperate and take these measures.  Both are somewhat logical and justifiable to why seemingly out of the blue, North Korea has been open to meeting with South Korea.

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More skeptical than optimistic

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When news breaks about how North Korea and South Korea are considering a peace treaty, there are a myriad of thoughts that swirl through my head.  Considering when I was born as well as the vast majority of the people I know, we have pretty much only known a world where the Koreas are at war.  Sometimes, I’m surprised how many people don’t actually know that the Korean War never technically ended, and that it’s only through the Armistice Agreement in the 50’s that they aren’t physically fighting to this day, but then again considering this isn’t information so readily available on Reddit, Facebook or Twitter, I can’t really say that I should be that surprised.

But although peace is ultimately a worthy end goal for warring nations, I can’t help but be skeptical about it instead of as optimistic as I probably should be, especially as a person with Korean blood running through my veins.  I attribute it to a lifetime raised by television, movies, video games, comic books and professional wrestling that I’m quicker to question the legitimacy of two parties willing to come to a truce, than be pleased to see the progression towards peace.

Frankly, the most dubious of factors is the fact that it wasn’t even a full year ago that tyrannical Kim Jong-Un was basically mouthing off about how he could blow up the United States any time he wanted to, successfully baiting the cheeto-in-chief into a childish Twitter war.  I have a hard time believing that a guy who is one, well known for his general instability, that must be genetic, considering who his dad was, and two, someone who has been vocal about his disdain for the United States, to be so suddenly willing and accommodating towards the progression towards a peace treaty with a South Korea that is pretty comfortable with their positive relationship with the United States.

I get that North is in a precarious position where they’re basically disliked by most other countries in the world, and would probably be a unanimous public enemy #1 if the Middle East didn’t exist.  And as a result, life is kind of difficult for them on a regular basis, what with the country routinely not having nearly enough food for their people, and a laughably inadequate distribution of resources between regular people and those controlled by the government.  From an outsider perspective, it looks like to me that North’s biggest reasons to strive for peace is so that they can possibly get in on the global trade market that might make life in North Korea not quite as hard as it seems to be on a routine basis.  As it stands now, it’s my understanding that the vast majority of their trade comes almost solely from China, and putting all their eggs into few baskets can’t possibly be as fruitful as putting them into more and bigger ones, in this instance.  Even if it means dismantling their nuclear program, a peace treaty would undoubtedly unlock many doors in order for them to start being able to get resources from South Korea as well as possibly even the United States.

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Danny’s watch list, winter-spring 2018

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Over the last few months, I’ve been watching a lot more television instead of burning every single evening playing League of Legends.  I still enjoy the game, but I’m not going to pretend like my interest in the game is nearly what it was a year or three ago; it’s kind of like how my baseball mania peaked and tempered back down a happy medium, to where I wanted to pursue other interests instead of letting myself get so completely absorbed in it.  I don’t follow professional play anymore, and I don’t even bother reading patch notes, and have gotten blindsided by some new in-game mechanics here and there, but I just don’t care. 

I could easily write more about why I’ve grown distant to the game, but that would be long enough to be another post for another time.

Television, has kind of filled the space in my free time that was so fervently accounted for by playing League.  Every now and then, I feel like I’m falling behind the ever-growing libraries of content being produced at a breakneck pace, and sometimes I just want to sit back and watch something and not be so interactively vested in my entertainment.  Sometimes it’s just nice to have stories told to you, without having to exert any more effort than pulling the tab on my recliner to sit back and enjoy television on my projection screen.

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Ichiro is going to kill someone someday

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You heard it here first: Ichiro Suzuki, the baseball player, is going to kill someone.  Be it his wife, his father, his mother, or even himself – there will be death by his hands in some way, shape, or form, one of these days.

ESPN has been getting a lot of praise recently for this story they just dropped about the tumultuous winter of 2017, where the 44-year old Ichiro was not sure whether or not his professional baseball career was over or not.  But because he’s this machine-like creature of habit, trained and conditioned since he was a kid to play baseball, he doesn’t know what else to do, other than train and prepare for the next season, regardless of his employment status or not.  Completely on his own, no less, away from his wife and his parents, whom it’s revealed he has a completely fractured and broken relationship with the dad that put him on the path that made Ichiro into Ichiro.

During the span in which the article is being written, Ichiro is signed by the MLB team in which his career started, the Seattle Mariners, and the prodigal son is returning home, for what is in all likelihood his final season.

But it’s the journey of uncertainty in which Ichiro embarks on that really makes me question his grasp on reality, and paints a picture of a kind of sad existence of a person whom has achieved greatness and immortality in the world of baseball, but is apparently completely out of touch and a total stranger to what the real world outside of baseball is actually like.

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I want to eat at the Midnight Diner

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A show I’ve been enjoying a lot lately has been Netflix’s Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories.  It’s apparent that I’m very favorable to slice of life types of shows, and at just ten episodes that aren’t even a full 30 minutes, it’s the perfect kind of show for me to watch an episode here and there, or watch several in a row, and walk away from the screen feeling moderately pleased with life.   There’s no really other way to describe it other than the fact that it’s a light show that puts me in a good mood while watching it.

There’s one particular episode that I enjoyed a lot, that revolved around the budding relationship between a Japanese physicist and a girl from Korea working in Tokyo, and how their shared love for fried rice omelets is the link that brings them together.  It deals with the taboo perspective of Korean-Japanese relationships, and how easy it is to criticize and pass judgment from the sidelines as opposed to those who are capable of seeing past them.  And all in like 25 minutes, which means the characters are introduced, a conflict is established, and then the episode winds down, giving me more time to do other things, which usually ends up watching another two episodes of Midnight Diner.

Anyway, aside from simply enjoying the show, I look at the Midnight Diner itself, as the kinds of places I love discovering and going to.  And I haven’t even been to Japan.  But anywhere, really, whether it’s in the United States or any other place in the world I’ve visited.  I love charming little eateries, where the cooks are masters of their small menus, and only hit home runs. 

However, when I do visit Tokyo one of these days, I hope like hell I’ll find a place like the Midnight Diner, and it would probably be the highlight of my trip if I actually did find one just like it.  I don’t stay up too late these days, but I’d be more than willing to capitalize on some jet lag and try to find a place open 12-7 am if were anything like the show’s place.

It’s a great show for those who like slice of life anthologies, or just want to watch something very quick, short and relaxing.  I know I’ll be disappointed when I finish the series, and have to go back to the drawing board to find something as simply enjoyable as Midnight Diner.