International Panty Thieves

I've always suspected that it was only a matter of degree separating Oregon from Korea (that, and about 10,000 kilometers), and now I have proof - in this case, 3,000 pairs of panties stolen from Oregon coeds, allegedly by a local Korean man. Even more coincidental is that this man, Sung Koo Kim, is being tried in a Yamhill County court in McMinnville, where I graduated from high school (and where, in my senior year, I was voted "Most Likely to Become a Millionaire." Just so you know.).

Apparently, Kim would follow young college students home to their apartments or dorm rooms and then, while they were out or sleeping, he would sneak in and steal their underwear and - get this - dryer lint. He also liked to videotape himself in the act of, um, gratifying himself while in the students' homes. Returing home from these outings, Kim would seal the lint and panties in ziploc bags and file them away with all the dutiful care of a national archivist.

Problem is - if Kim didn't have enough already - a few of his pilferings came from the same apartment complex in which a now-disappeared female BYU student was visiting her sister. The police are calling Kim "a person of interest," which to me sounds like "suspect," but, hey, innocent until proven otherwise.

Judging by reports from people in Oregon following the story, the media's done an admirable job of keeping Kim's nationality out of the reports, at least as a crucial factor. If that were Korea, the report would read something like this:

"Today, Aaron, an American, was arrested by police for stealing panties from Korean women. The American was not armed but should be considered dangerous because, well, he's American and we all know what Americans are like. It's a well-known fact that they all carry AIDS, rape cats and hate gimchi."

Kim's bail, for the record, has been set at $16 million dollars (!!). Here's one guy who's got a lot of explaining to do.

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"Yon-Sama"

Due to a saccharine Korean melodrama ("Winter Sonata"), middle-aged Japanese women are - quite literally - falling all over themselves these days to meet Korean men. According to this article, a fair number of Japanese women now see Korean men as "sincere, pure, giving, passionate and soothing." Now, I want to know: are men - speaking generally, not specifically - like this anywhere on the planet, least of all in Korea? Moreover, someone needs to tell these Japanese ladies that they're basing their ideas on a television show. It's fake, ladies, and beyond that, the main character (pictured above) looks like a total knob.

Consider them informed. You're welcome.

Hahm In Hee, a sociologist at Ewha Women's University, tried to set the record straight, saying that Korean women see Korean men as "self-centered and immature...dependent on their mothers and wives." As the Korean women have to live with 'em, I'd tend to listen to their opinion.

This whole phenomenon is fascinating, though, if only because Japan brutally ruled Korea for the first half of the twentieth century and currently views its neighbor to the west much as benighted America views Mexico - i.e. dirty, noisy, crass, dark, etc. Now, Japanese people are lapping up Korean pop culture like kittens at a cow udder. Go figure.

All up, it's an interesting article and I'd recommend you give it a read if you've got the time. Or if you don't.

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How Long with the Kid Gloves?

Ahhhh, it's about time I got back to the subject of North Korea.

Seems Mr. Kim and his musketeers are irked that the Japanese have threatened to cut off all aid to the North and impose economic sanctions on the country. Why? you ask. Well, as you know, North Korea has an obnoxious habit of abducting Japanese civilians and then forcing them to work as language teachers in the DPRK. Japan recently demanded that the remains of one such abductee be returned to Japan. A while later, some remains showed up in Japan, but after running some DNA tests, Japan discovered that they'd been duped - these were not the promised remains. So Japan is now threatening the aforementioned actions. North Korea says it will interpret any such moves as a sign of war and respond as it sees fit.

Huh?

Would someone please inform Kim Jong-Il that his was the country that started all this by abducting Japanese civlians. Don't kidnap people and maybe no one gets any briars in their butts.

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Practice What You Preach

Sorry, no Moonie news here, but we do have a man who's managed to join the ranks of David Koresh and win a Darwin Award all at the same time. It seems that Mr. Song, now deceased, was the leader of a cult that believed in resurrection and eternal life, the members of which became disenchanted and decided to test his theory by burying him alive. Hey, at least the captain went down with the ship, eh?

A snippet of the article:

Mr. Song began treating people with incurable illnesses with chi, or life energy, from the late 1980s and then began to give his devotees religious training. But after Mr. Song's chi "treatments" failed to show measurable effects, his followers became upset. Police said they believe that an internal struggle involving the ownership of the cult's property led to the four members sealing Mr. Song in what became his tomb.

Jack Handy once noted that the hardest thing about being a yodeling teacher would be keeping the students from yodeling on the first day.

"You see, we build to that."

In the same vein, if you think you can fly, don't jump off a building. Try taking off from the ground first. So, too, with being buried alive: have one of your friends cover you with some blankets or a piece of plywood and, hey, if that works out alright, proceed accordingly. Don't get yourself sealed up like Tut on the first day out. You can't just jump headlong into these things, you've got pay your dues and test the theories before you start preaching about them. Houdini didn't become an expert overnight, you know.

I know this fellow probably didn't ask to be entombed by his followers, but he's still an imbecile for planting the thought in their heads, and it should be obvious by now that God doesn't suffer fools lightly.

Well, we've had a good time together in this post, I think, touching on the Moonies, yodeling, King Tut and Charles Darwin, to name a few. My free association faculties are pretty well knackered, though, so that'll have to do for today.

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Seeing No Evil

I suppose the only thing I miss about having a TV is that I'm no longer able to watch the Saturday morning (Korean time) NBA games on American Forces Television, complete with "commercials" telling the troops to use the buddy system when they leave base, go the bathroom, etc. But then, without the television, I do a lot more reading, write off the time on this site, and - this is probably the best change of all - I no longer have to suffer through highlights of the latest Portland Trailblazers loss, of which there are always aplenty.

I remember telling my father a few years ago, when Portland was at the height of its "Jailblazers" period, that I'd probably root for the team even if it fielded a starting lineup of Charlie Manson, Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, Ted Bundy and Joseph Stalin. I mean, what am I supposed to, stop being a Blazers fan? I've recently come to believe, however, that such a felonious starting five would probably fare better than whatever the team's put on the floor this year. In any event, flagrant fouls would be a lot more effective if left to someone like Manson, don't you think?

Then again, would anyone really want to see Manson or Bundy involved in a riot like the one in Detroit a few weeks ago? Not me. But neither do I understand why people were so surprised about that fight. To me, it's no different from the military giving immature eighteen year-olds a rifle, training them to kill and then being shocked when they snap in a civilian area and do what they were trained to do. We shouldn't be surprised by violence when we live in a world that promotes it to such an unbelievable extent.

Not that any of it matters much to me. I find that I'm not half as riled up about the imbecilic state of the world as I once was, back when AFN was beeming "Combat Camera," "This Year in Military History," and "The Leaders" into my brain for hours at a time. Since getting rid of the Lucifer's Dream Box (as it's been affectionately called), I've slowly felt the black paint disappear from my eyes. A few of my more basic mental faculties have even returned - I can, for example, now go to the bathroom without using the Buddy System.

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Knock-off Culture: Starbutts

On the infamous "Hooker Hill" in Itaewon, Seoul

There's no shortage of Starbucks copies in Korea - from Prowstar to Coobucks - and now I give you Starbutts. If nothing else, it's certainly one of the more creative Starbucks imitations I've seen. Need I point out that one can get more than a Cafe Latte here?

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Killer Fans

For anyone who lives in Korea this subject will be nothing new and, if they're a westerner, it will surely be a trifle irritating if only because it makes no bloody sense. The basic plot summary is this: In Korea there is an urban legend that if one closes the doors and windows, turns on a fan and goes to sleep, they're...uh...going to die.

Why?

Well, thar's the rub. The theory holds no scientific water, you see, but fanned by the local media (motto: "True or Not, It's News!"), a lot of Koreans have been duped into believing that their fans are out to get them and no amount of logical explanation about the nature of oxygen and the circulation thereof can convince them otherwise. Thank heavens, then, that a member of that cursed local media troupe saw fit to publish this piece. Here's a pair of more lucid comments from the text:

Dr. John Linton of Yonsei University's Severance Hospital noted that "there is little scientific evidence to support that a fan alone can kill you if are using it in a sealed room. Although it is a common belief among Koreans, there are other explainable reasons for why these deaths are happening."
And...

"I found most of the victims already had some sort of disease like heart problems or serious alcoholism," said Dr. Lee Yoon-Song of Seoul National University.

Koreans simply won't listen to a western voice on the matter, so the fact that a Korean is telling them that fan death is a myth might make more progress. To that end, here's another piece, this one written by a Korean.

For my part, I've gone to sleep a number of times with my fan on - windows open, windows closed, whatever - and I guess you can deduce the results. I suspect it'll take more than a fan to end my life.

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