Summer times are great times and now the sitting and sipping cocktails with your friends outdoor season has begun! Also the photo to the right shows a great korean invention. Bat Bing Soo. Shaved ice with fruits and redbeans. Alot of food and snacks are geared towards keeping you cool. A practise I appriciate more and more as the temperature and humidity keeps climbing.


The madcow craze continues but seem to slow down abit. It has been a bit of a witchhunt crazy which is kind of scary. Even at Seoul National University there has been protests. And that is supposed to be one of the countries leading education centers. Nationalism is a scary thing.

Streetart and streetlife

One sad thing about korean society is how they view individuality. It is not considered a good thing and people who do not conform are looked down upon. All theese photos are from artwork and places in Hongdae area. Here the non conformists gather and it is the mainstream people who stick out. This makes this area alive and vibrant. It also gives it a standing as a party place. I hope this is the mentality that will prevail in Korea, because I belive it makes people more happy. In any case, at least it makes for more intressting fashion and art...

Beef and bird flu

The last weeks a lot of protests about the US beef import has been seen on the streets and in the news papers. Companies selling beef products have been quick to assure that they do only use Korean beef, and none of the supposedly mad cow infected US ones... I'm not sure what they feed Korean cows with, but it is probably not healthy. So now I try to choose tofu or fish.
The weirdest part is that the birdflu has arrived to Seoul. But it does not make the headline were patriotic korean lament their goverments weakness in giving in to US demands. The protection of the domestic market for food products is a huge issue. Most Koreans are willing to pay 4 times the world market price for rice to get Korean rice. I wonder what my economic professor says about that...

With the warmer weathar clothes have become smaller, revealing tattoos. In Korea tattoos are still considered A BAD THING. But in my beloved Hongdae area there is quite a few people, mostly guys, with tattoos.
It is considered bad becasue it is associated with the mafia, and that it desecrates the body thatyour parents gave you. Apperantly smoking, drinking like a fish and not exercising is ok, but a tattoo...It is, along with piercing, technicaly illegal. But not many are arrested. Though early this year there was a famous tattoo artist who were arrested on the grounds that since he is piercing the skin, it is a medical procedure, and therefore he is practicing medicine without a license. Mostly it has to do with young men getting big tattoos to escape military service or be put to light duty. Yes that is right, if you got mafia looking tattoos, you can escape the mandatory 2 year service.
This is just one way in which Korea is changing so fast that the goverment gets left in the dust. The attitude of the younger generation and the old one is widening, and there is no real way to bridge it.
Older people can sometimes be very helpfull, and sometimes very rude.
Anyway, I have been spying peoples arms and legs for tattoos, and ther is obiousvly and artist out there who knows what he or she is doing.
Today I had a Pol Sci class were I acctually understud what the teacher was talking about, an ecconomics class were I did not pay attention and a litterature class were I read. After the two first classes my energy level is pretty spent. Next week is an week of assignments and holidays, since monday is Buddhas birth day! Happy birthday!
Once again I appologies for the bad spelling and incorretct grammar, this time helped along by the fact that I am writing without my glasses and have to squint to see the text...

Summer heatwave

The heat is back. And it have made me realize something. In the winter korean girls wear miniskirts and freezes their legs of, as soon as the weather changed though, the miniskirts were replaced by pants. Maybe this is part of the whole stay as pale as you can craze. A few brave girls have started to tan, to try to look western I guess. Or maybe they are trying to look like Japanese that try to look like californian girls ( there is a subculture of these girls in Japan, I think they are called Gyaru or something like that) Anyway, this is part of the intense love and care they spend on their skin. An other thing I have noticed is that they bring their toothbrush with them to school and brush their teeth after lunch. Very dedicated to dental hygine as well... I love talking to people and hear what they think is strange about swedes. If you have any suggestions I'm all ears!