A few weeks ago, a several popular Korean blogs started a multi-post, multi-site discussion about why expat bloggers complain about Korea.
I’ll leave that question to the excellent discussion that ensued on other blogs, but wanted to share my initial reaction—which is that there are actually *lots* of expat bloggers who don’t complain about Korea. You just never seem to hear about them.
Now, I’m not the type of person who thinks you need to write all about sunshine and rainbows just to be polite. But sometimes what passes for cultural “observations” and criticism on many expat sites just veers right on off into raging hypocrisy.
Case in point: If you write all the time about how wrong and horribly, horribly unjust it is that “Koreans” judge all Americans by the mistakes of a few people (U.S. service members convicted of rape, assault, robbery; English teachers caught with drugs, etc.) then proceed to pontificate on the “Korean mindset” or complain that “all Koreans” believe x, do y, and think z. Hey, pot? Meet kettle.
But apparently that’s what gets attention.
Well, that, and alternating posts decrying the sexism and misogyny in Korean culture with ones containing provocative pictures of different Korean actresses and singers, while you salivate in written form over her “rack,” the “ass” on another, or whether a third’s thighs have really gotten just too chunky. But I digress …
Perhaps I should start an even more narrow and self-referential series: Korea Expat Bloggers Who Complain about Korea Expat Bloggers.
This has actually been a favorite lunchtime debate between me and another friend and fellow blogger. That, and debating why almost all of the really popular blogs are written by men. After a few months of sitting around and complaining—albeit just between us, instead of in print and online (sorry! we’re so last-gen that way), we decided to try an experiment.
A group blog by and about women in Korea, discussing politics, culture, and current events. And, though there are expats writing there, there are also Korean nationals and people who are just not that into labels. Posts will be in English or in Korean (some in both).
We want to see if we can create a dynamic, popular online discussion that crosses cultural lines — expats and non, Korean-speakers and not — and makes it easier for women to have their voices heard in the hurly-burly that is the Korean blogosphere.
To that end, we picked the one place that women in Korea will feel most comfortable—that’s right: the mogyoktang (목욕탕). Without further ado, I give you Naked in the Sauna.
Head on over and check us out. Something for everyone, a little politics, a little Korean culture, and maybe even a post or two on the incredible hotness that is Kam Woo Seong. (But those posts would not be written by me - no, no, no, not at all…)
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