Saturday, June 12, 2010

Using K-Pop to fight Communism

The idea of using Korean pop music to as South Korean propaganda against the North is so ridiculously Korean and wonderful. At least it's not bombs. The Chosun Ilbo reported:
An official in charge of psy ops at the Joint Chiefs of Staff said no decision has been made so far. "It will take months to set up the big screens to use in psychological warfare operations and a wide range of contents will be shown," the official said. "I don't know whether songs by girl groups will be included, but there is that chance since pop songs were used in the past."
Brian in Jeollanam-do wrote a bit about it in "Shitty K-pop Groups to be used to torment North Korea."  And while I agree that k-pop is pretty bad quality wise, the entirety of South Korea seems to be smitten with it.   The Chosun Ilbo focused less on the music and more on the groups' appearance: "the revealing outfits worn by the performers and their provocative dances could have a considerable impact on North Korean soldiers." I think they are trying to tempt the soldiers but it has an enormous likelihood of backfiring. As much as the rest of the world scoffs at the propaganda mill in North Korea, it has a fairly strong grip on the society. It wouldn't take any work to make videos of the k-pop groups into proof the general moral degeneracy of the South.

In other news:

My mother board on my old Dell died again. Since this is the 3rd or 4th motherboard it's gone through I think there is something else wrong causing the repeated deaths. Instead of having Dell do another shit repair job on it I'll probably take it to the computer repair shop on my street with a translated note from my co-teacher or something.  Then again, Korea is so tech savy I wonder if they'll be able to get parts for my ancient beast.  Point being: picture posts will be even more sporadic than usual for the next few weeks. 

Tonight is the one year anniversary of Busan Haps! Korea has been going NUTS over the World Cup and even though I've never even been cognizant of the event going on I've been kind of getting into it. I even scored a shirt at E-mart with Korea spelled wrong so I'm going to wear that out tonight to the giant Busan Haps party.

7 comments:

Simon said...

Can you pick up some sort of cheapo "what the locals use" type machine and just get them to put an english OS on it?

It does sound an awful lot like you're Dell has a serious design flaw somewhere.

Simon said...

I can't believe my grammar was that bad - that's what I get for posting to your blog before I drink my coffee.

Alex said...

I could get a cheapo netbook or something I suppose to tide me over but I really just want to save up for a Mac...

Simon said...

Well, if you can get the Dell fixed for free (warranty) there, you may as well, but I wouldn't spend money on it. Do they sell Netbooks in the grocery store there yet?

Also, whenever you do buy the Mac, I would strongly recommend buying AppleCare sometime in that first year (2nd and 3rd year of warranty). Macs can be difficult and expensive to find parts for and aren't really designed for quick/easy field repairs.

Simon said...

Also, if you're buying Apple, the factory refurbs are generally as good as or better than new, can easily be 20% off, and are still eligible for Applecare.

This was a work purchase (not personal), but we recently got a bunch of 13" "Britney Spears" (cheap, white, plastic) macbooks for $759/ea, with pretty respectable specs.

Kyle Crum said...

I hope they show "Abaracadabera" to N. Korea. That should make at least a couple of the soldiers defect.

Josh said...

heehee..... Britney Spears.... i want a picture of the Korea spelled wrong shirt