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Smee
Joined: 24 Dec 2004
Location: Jeollanam-do
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 Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 2:07 am Post subject: Gwangju News in trouble for writing about love motels. |
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Here's another case of using the "you don't understand Korean culture" line to save face.
The Gwangju News (an English language magazine in Gwangju) did a two-page spread on interesting love motel facades. Each picture had a caption, and the piece was prefaced with:
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| In Gwangju, the neon lights of a love motel are never far from view. Young couples use love motels to enjoy a romantic night away from parental scrutiny. Love motels are also a rendezvous point for extramarital affairs. Like beauty pageant contestants, love motels decked out in exotic attire vie for attention along the Gwangjucheon waterfront. |
A local Korean paper, the Jeonnam Ilbo, got upset that a foreigner wrote this article. An excerpt:
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| 해당 기사를 작성한 사람은 미국인 밀리암 호씨. 하지만 그는 광주에 온지 두 달밖에 안 된 것으로 알려졌다. 한국문화에 대해 제대로 이해하지 못한 외국인의 눈에 비친 광주가 아무런 여과 없이 광주를 소개하는 영문 잡지에 실린 것이다. |
http://www.jnilbo.com/read.php3?aid=1242054000298386004
Basically says that the author has only been in Gwangju 2 months and doesn't understand Korean culture. She's passing along this misinformation to foreigners who are reading the magazine to learn about Gwangju.
(From this post: http://briandeutsch.blogspot.com/2009/05/english-language-magazine-gwangju-news.html ) |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 2:23 am Post subject: Re: Gwangju News in trouble for writing about love motels. |
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| Smee wrote: |
| ...the author... doesn't understand Korean culture. |
it's not that what was said wasn't true, it's just if the author "understood" Korean culture, it would be all hush-hush - not talked about, just done
it's a face saving thing
...
bah |
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PeteJB
Joined: 06 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 2:39 am Post subject: |
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| Well clearly the writer doesn't know about Korean culture, because if he/she did they would have already known better than to write this article considering the kind of reaction it gets (which is pretty much 100% clear to those of us with enough cultural experience) - That being said, the media here is a pos and thinks it can control everything when it cant and never will. |
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eamo
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.
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| Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 3:05 am Post subject: |
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| Koreans can be so pithy about their national image.......like any tourist to any part of Korea could even miss the dozens of Love Hotels and not guess what they're for. |
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wylies99
Joined: 13 May 2006
Location: I'm one cool cat!
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| Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 3:11 am Post subject: |
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| Love motels? That's actually a relatively tame topic that involves consenting adults. What would the Korean newspapers have said if the author had written about prostitution in Korea? Hmmmm? |
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bogey666
Joined: 17 Mar 2008
Location: Korea, the ass free zone
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| Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 4:05 am Post subject: |
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| wylies99 wrote: |
| Love motels? That's actually a relatively tame topic that involves consenting adults. What would the Korean newspapers have said if the author had written about prostitution in Korea? Hmmmm? |
last time I checked, prostitution also involved consenting adults.
I find it interesting to see people writing about things like prostitution and love motels in the first place.'
'
what... you were born yesterday??? and or spent your entire life in say.. the cloistered walls of Bob Jones University?
(though stats say if that were the case, you engaged in repeated sodomania!  ) |
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cdninkorea
Joined: 27 Jan 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 4:57 am Post subject: |
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| I was in Gwangju about a month ago and was amazed at all the love motels- much more than there are in Seoul by the look of it. Another thing I noticed was a lack of DVD rooms; perhaps this helps account for the extra motels? |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 6:15 am Post subject: |
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| cdninkorea wrote: |
| I was in Gwangju about a month ago and was amazed at all the love motels- much more than there are in Seoul by the look of it. Another thing I noticed was a lack of DVD rooms; perhaps this helps account for the extra motels? |
I remember when I was relatively new to Korea and a Canadian trainer told me that Korea is a conservative country. I couldn't understand that notion since prostitution is everywhere, so it didn't quite compute. However, it makes sense to some extent since in Latin America there were plenty of such stuff going on that happens in Korea except for the love motels, perhaps, and Latin Americans are not so open about having girlfriends while being married or what have you. It must be exciting for some youth to go to love motels, I would imagine, but in Korea it's kind of like drinking alcohol out of a paper bag and trying to be discreet about the fact that you drink as people used to do in the West. Image is extremely important. The problem with such thinking is it encourages hypocricy, in my humble opinion. |
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wuzza
Joined: 02 May 2003
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| Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 8:17 am Post subject: |
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| bogey666 wrote: |
last time I checked, prostitution also involved consenting adults.
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Tell that to the girls  |
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