Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Derrek]

Hello,

Some of you know that I am developing a news site for English-speakers in Seoul. I've been buried in student projects for the last month, so I have been too busy. I plan, however, to launch my news site in February.

I wanted to start with a story about "Hooker Hill", because I knew that would capture attention and bring people to my site. I went to "the hill" (the place was dead), and as you can imagine, no one wanted to be on video -- even if I mosaic'd out their faces and changed their voice. Still determined, it led me to come up with an idea to add audio stories to my site.

I want to determine how useful it would be to people if I put radio-style daily news on my site, in addition to video feature stories, weather, and other basic text news. I would update this every morning with national and local stuff. I have a voice audio program that can help me do this easily, so I won't have to read everything. I know that this voiceware stuff sometimes sounds bad, but this program is pretty darned good. I have a few mistypes in there (it reads a year like: one-thousand-nine-hundred-fourty-six, but I can iron these things out later).

The current idea is to have a link on my site to the daily audio news. Another is to have a streaming music station with top 40 hits or something, and news imbedded in that.

Please click on this link and let me know what you think. By the way, the stories are from today, and are true:

http://www.seoulstream.com/Audio/SS%20NEWS%20FRIDAY.wmv



Comments? Ideas? Thanks!

[TECO]

I listened to your news report.

"Sonny" - I remember a Sonny from hooker hill - An incredibly hard woman but amazingly beautiful.

Overall, hooker hill is a pretty rough place to be hanging out.

[rawiri]

I don't know...ive only seen the one fight and that was only a one punch affair...ive seen rougher spots.

[TECO]

I've seen rougher, too - East Hastings Street, Vancouver?

LOL!!

[Blind Willie]

heh hehe hehehe hohohohoho harharharhar har har huh huh huh huh huh hehehehehe heh heh heh he hehehehee ha ha ha ha ha ha

[itaewonguy]

is that a robot voice>? derrick.. please thats really annoying!
its better when you do the voice..

[helly]

Is "juicy bar" really the common term now? I remember hearing it in the past but it never really seemed right.

[gajackson1]

Hey, Derrek -

is the voice a RAMONA model, from Kurzweil.net? It is dang near identical. If that is the case, you can probably just use the cgi model, as well - they may even have an 'Asian' out by now.

Regards,

Glen

ps ~ the news is solid, & I like the intro music (KWB may be able to help you with it), but I agree on the voice - 'real' voices are better, if it is feasible, time-wise.

[Derrek]

Hmm...

Yeah, it's a voice from a Korean program that uses voice software developed somewhere else, so it's probably used in other programs. You can change the pitch and speed of the voice. I thought it might be quicker/easier to use that than to have me read the thing and have to start/stop/start/stop when I made mistakes. If you guys think it sounds bad, and you'd not listen to it, then I won't use it -- thanks for the input.

All-in-all, as I've messed with the program more, it turns out I spend more time trying to re-spell certain words so they sound correct, anyway. You should hear how it butchers, "Itaewon."

For classword, I still think the software is better than a lot of the Korean teacher voices with awful accents out there!!!!!!!!

And TECO, not the same Sunny. I think I talked to 3 girls named "Sunny" out there trying to get someone on camera.

[Ihavenolips]

In its heyday Hooker Hill could have been mistaken for a number of red-light locations in Thailand, Amsterdam, or the Philippines. Hooker Hill has nearly turned into a ghost town since the Korean government has been cracking down on prostitution. Maybe this is the real reason that U.S. troops are leaving the country.

The real story is how these restrictions have impacted the local economy. What has happened to the prostitutes? Where have the red light districts moved to? I have also heard a few reports that many motels have been driven out of business, since it was sex rather than tourism that brought in clients.

If you want to start a journalistic website than dig deeper. Find an angle that hasn't been done to death already. If you only want to stick a microphone into somebody's face and ask them about sexual encounters, than I have no interest in your site. If you can provide new information than I would visit from time to time. Also, look into President Roh's proposed changes to the educational sysyem in Korea. I would be interested on how it will affect policy toward hagwons.

[Derrek]

[komtengi]

listening to that voice is so annoying.

[lastat06513]

The term "juicy bar" is pretty common with the soldiers here.
Actually, that term is added to the new comers vocab once they hit the Replacement center for in-processing.

Here are some other "useful" terminology;

Juicy Bar- A place to buy drinks for yourself and for a lovely young lady to sit and talk to you. Some places offer "extra services" for an extra price.

Juicy Girl- A barmaid who works in these establishments, who do everything from Bartending to talking with the costumers to other extracurricular activites.

MamaSan (japanese origin)- Traditionally, the old ajumma who would run the bars and pimp out the girls.

[Zed]

[the_beaver]