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rocklee
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
Location: Seoul
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 Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:08 am Post subject: Why is the Korean astronaut so chubby? |
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She looked like she went to rice camp instead of boot camp.
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IncognitoHFX
Joined: 06 May 2007
Location: Yeongtong, Suwon
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| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:19 am Post subject: Re: Why is the Korean astronaut so chubby? |
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| rocklee wrote: |
| She looked like she went to rice camp instead of boot camp. |
We had our "let's make fun of the Korean astronaut" thread already, and this is the least decent thing to make fun of. |
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rocklee
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:25 am Post subject: |
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Did you? sorry don't go looking for every thread.
And what's so indecent about this topic (did she die or something). Anyway she looks like she was pumped. Everybody else looked lean and fit at least. |
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kabrams
Joined: 15 Mar 2008
Location: your Dad's house
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| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:45 am Post subject: |
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| rocklee wrote: |
Did you? sorry don't go looking for every thread.
And what's so indecent about this topic (did she die or something). Anyway she looks like she was pumped. Everybody else looked lean and fit at least. |
O rly? |
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jetrash
Joined: 02 Jun 2007
Location: the united steaks
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| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:59 am Post subject: |
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i like her.
(ive heard she hates korea) |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 9:29 am Post subject: |
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| Geez. I think she just has a big face. Some do. |
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Hobophobic
Joined: 16 Aug 2004
Location: Sinjeong negorie mokdong oh ga ri samgyup sal fighting
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| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 3:02 pm Post subject: |
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| The moon is made of cheese and the gravitational pull to the ions generated in the blood stream from pocarri sweat and the garlic in kimchi force plastic surgery face implants to swell upon re-entry....geez dude there is a thing called google dontchyaknow? |
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tzechuk
Joined: 20 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 3:51 pm Post subject: |
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omg.. hahaha.. my husband (who is Korean) asks the same thing each and every time he sees her on TV.. so this has nothing to do with rocklee being anti-Korean or whatever.. I think a few Koreans think the same..
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brento1138
Joined: 17 Nov 2004
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| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 3:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Interesting. So they didn't just pick her for her looks........ how out of the ordinary! |
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Bibbitybop
Joined: 22 Feb 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 4:04 pm Post subject: |
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rocklee, do you make fun of black people for being black, too? I'm often amazed at how a person's physique can be ridiculed while ethnicity is off-limits. Some people can choose to be thin, but everyone doesn't have a slender body naturally. Soyeon, the astronaut, obviously is in good health in order to get into space.
To read a really good report on the world's positive and Korea's negative opinion of Soyeon, read this article:
http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2008/04/this-just-takes.html
[link contains videos]
From the second half of the article:
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Perhaps this is telling: I put it on MNCast and Daum, and there was nearly no reaction. No one cared, and I didn't expect them to. Almost no one watched it.
And the reaction on YouTube? Overwhelmingly positive. People remarked about what a great sense of humor she has, how humble she is, how intelligent her answers are, and how mature she seemed -- even from the beginning, far before she was actually chosen. The fact that she was a woman was a sign to most foreigners that Korean society was becoming more liberal and fair towards women, and even after the other candidate was initially chosen to go to space, all the foreigners I knew were rooting for Soyeon. Especially Americans, we like the underdog. Before Soyeon had even arrived in Russia, I had learned from the blogging community and people linking to my site that the NASA astronauts and people from other space programs had already seen Soyeon through the videos even before they had met her.
What continues to both surprise and disappoint me is that Koreans are still so worried about "what foreigners will think" and still so steeped in 사대주의 that people wring their hands over a few words spoken in passing well before the fact, despite the fact that Soyeon has shown nothing but respect for the people who have come before her at Soyuz, whom she mentions as having died so she can go into space safely, who have developed technology that she has dedicated her life to helping develop back in her home country.
Yet, context doesn't matter when you can simply attack someone out of spite or jealousy, right?
It seems to me that Korea is still so caught up in the psychological scars of bitterness over 사대주의, the national humiliation of having loss its sovereignty, the destruction and horrors of the Pacific and Korean Wars, followed by loss of freedom under dictatorship, rapid development and urbanization, along with the social problems created cutthroat competition for scarce resources, which has manifested in the education system, women feeling the social pressure to define their self-worth primarily through their appearance, and the drive to be first, first, first no matter what the cost, as we saw in the cases of the Sampung Department Store, Seongsu Bridge, Taegu gas explosion, or finally in the case of Hwang Woo-seok.
But in the case of the typical "national hero", he was from the establishment, old, and a man. He "deserved" his fame, right? He fits the image of the national hero. It doesn't matter that he violated ethical protocols to do it. Who cares where the eggs come from, right? When it comes to the nation, it's still "하면 된다" right? And when he's a Seoul National University scientist, an older man with connections, and wearing a white coat, he is names "hero" before the ink even dries on the textbooks. And then "Korea" embarrasses itself.
There's a huge unspoken message behind the attacks on Soyeon, and how my videos are being used (stupidly, I think, but they are, nevertheless). It bothers a lot of people that she got into space through a process that had been open to anyone, and that she won it fair and square. It bothers a lot of people that she's a woman. It bothers a lot of people that she's a YOUNG woman. And for certain people, the only place for a young woman is in high heels and behind a cake of makeup, shaking their shoulders and calling them "오빠!" These are the people who seem to be the most offended by Soyeon's mere existence.
For Soyeon, I'm glad she wasn't chosen initially, and it was Ko San's own mistakes that got him disqualified. If she had been the first choice, I think the netizens would have been even worse: "Woman are too powerful" or "She was just chosen for PR because she was a woman!" Ridiculous, in a society that treats men like veritable kings, and a woman I know with a Ph.D. in the sciences was told by her mother-in-law to not work because it "would make her husband look bad." For certain people in Korea, for whom it is still the Joseon Era, Soyeon's success is very, very offensive, indeed.
If people are really concerned, as some say they are, with Korea's national image, then they would stop behaving as they are, for the obvious reasons that they are. It is absolutely shocking to see how eagerly and viciously so many of her fellow Koreans try to tear her down.
When YouTube came to Korea and opened its site, you know what appeared for the first time on Soyeon's videos? Statements appeared for the FIRST time attacking this nanotechnology engineer going up into space for "being too fat" or "having a big head" or just for the apparent crime of being a woman. You know what was the real "나라 망신?" It wasn't Yi Soyeon, but the negative and vicious words of her fellow Koreans, made in front of beweildered foreigners on YouTube. And I sometimes can't keep up with the 악풀, since I delete them. I wonder what the foreigners think of that?
The problem isn't really anything Soyeon said -- it is really the fact that no matter what, so many of her fellow Koreans (especially men) are eager to attack her, eager to tear her down. The content isn't important; vicious netizens would have found something. I think Yi Soyeon represents some very sensitive points in Korean modern society, and is the point at which public notions about ability, fairness, and relative success converge with older notions of traditional related to age, gender, scholastic background, and yes, even regionalism. In short, Soyeon is young, female, outspoken, and obviously articulate about expressing herself frankly. Honestly speaking, how are such women generally regarded in Korean society? |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 4:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Bibbitybop wrote: |
rocklee, do you make fun of black people for being black, too? I'm often amazed at how a person's physique can be ridiculed while ethnicity is off-limits. Some people can choose to be thin, but everyone doesn't have a slender body naturally. Soyeon, the astronaut, obviously is in good health in order to get into space.
To read a really good report on the world's positive and Korea's negative opinion of Soyeon, read this article:
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I'm at odds with this. The attacks are stupid. No one should be attacked for anything, though I am not surprised as my opinion of Korean men could not really ever get lower.
But, it was a valid question if not being used as an attack. No one should be ridiculed, BUT being fat is not good, and the West's fascination with telling fat people they should be proud of themselves is very wrong and stupid. |
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Underwaterbob
Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Location: In Cognito
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| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 4:15 pm Post subject: |
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| To the OP: Comparison pictures of yourself or shut up. |
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CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
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| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 4:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Regardless of what one thinks of how she appears, the fact is that she would not have been cleared to go if she were not physically fit. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 4:19 pm Post subject: |
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| laogaiguk wrote: |
| Bibbitybop wrote: |
rocklee, do you make fun of black people for being black, too? I'm often amazed at how a person's physique can be ridiculed while ethnicity is off-limits. Some people can choose to be thin, but everyone doesn't have a slender body naturally. Soyeon, the astronaut, obviously is in good health in order to get into space.
To read a really good report on the world's positive and Korea's negative opinion of Soyeon, read this article:
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I'm at odds with this. The attacks are stupid. No one should be attacked for anything, though I am not surprised as my opinion of Korean men could not really ever get lower.
But, it was a valid question if not being used as an attack. No one should be ridiculed, BUT being fat is not good, and the West's fascination with telling fat people they should be proud of themselves is very wrong and stupid. |
Bollocks. You have to be extremely fit to be an Astronaut. She probably just has a big face. A lot of Asians do.
What a petty topic for a thread. No wonder I usually just stick to the CE forum. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 4:21 pm Post subject: |
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| brento1138 wrote: |
| Interesting. So they didn't just pick her for her looks........ how out of the ordinary! |
Exactly. She wasn't picked for being photogenic - how scandalous! Only men are allowed to be ugly bastards and be in the public spotlight. This is a shocking crime!! |
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