Stuff Asian People Like

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#81 National Scatology

Posted July 8th, 2008 by Peter · No Comments

81-national-scatology

Disclaimer: Excuse the language, this was an article suggested by one of our loyal readers. This post is better suited at the Korean crowd. Enjoy.

One of Korean school kids’ favourite games is 똥침, or “ddong ch’im,” which translates roughly as “shit needle.” It’s not complicated; all you do is run around with your two index fingers in the steeple position, find vulnerable anuses and jam your “needle” up them as hard as you can. (Find a digital version of the game—a kind of excremental Asteroids—here. ) For the foreign receiver, this is rarely funny or enjoyable in any way. However, the activity is indicative of a much larger national relationship with turds.

In the West, we have plenty of juvenile toilet humour, but when it boils right down to it, there’s not much we like less than shit. We think shit is gross. We equate it with moral filth, degeneracy, everything in society that we would like to flush into the sewer along with our deuce bombs. As Erik D’Amato points out in his “Mystery of Disgust,” “in most cultures the same word used to describe feces and decay [‘disgusting’] is also applied to morally-dubious acts.”

In Korea, however, shit is cute. It has somehow been adopted as a kind of cartoon mascot, a harmless and even adorable little character that takes the form of a coiled, anthropomorphized pile of poop. You’ll find this little guy on stickers, notebooks and other school supplies, and even used on signage for restaurants; currently, by my count, there are at least three “Ddong” bars in Shi-cheong, the student pub area of Jeju City, each of which is adorned with a glowing pile of shit to draw carousers in for a few shitty beers.

In Seoul, there is even a pair of public sculptures of the peaked forms done in colourful mosaic. The forthright appreciation for crap goes even further in Jeju, where indigenous black pig, traditionally raised in pens that doubled as toilets for Jeju villagers and therefore fattened on the droppings left therein, is among the most coveted and expensive meats used for Korean barbeque. This is not only undisguised—it is advertised in the very name of the animal: “ddong dwaeji,” literally, “shit pig.”

The Korean fondness for feces probably has roots in Confucianism, wherein the individual is always part of a larger group, thereby rendering Western notions of privacy moot. This ideological base also dictates that standards of shame are based more on concepts of social dishonor than fear of the body. It could also have to do with the much more direct relationship Koreans have with the sources of their food—there is no equivalent in Korean for the English words “beef” and “pork”; here, you order “so gogi” or “dwaeji gogi,” “cow meat” or “pig meat,” and the animals that provide the meat appear alongside the little turd as cartoon ambassadors for the restaurants in which they are served as dinner. Maybe recognizing the stuff you are eating makes it easier to face the stuff you are excreting, which is, after all, the same shit in a different form.

Whatever the explanation, the discrepancy between our fear of shit and Koreans’ tendency to want to cuddle it points to the same difference in perspective that I mentioned oh, about six million words ago in the introduction. What is important when looking at these differences, be they to do with food or shit, is not to fall into the trap of grafting our moral judgments about things we deem “disgusting” onto cultures that haven’t absorbed our inherited cultural attitudes. As D’Amato points out, “by relishing something we consider gross, an otherwise well-regarded culture can be instantly relegated to barbarian status.” The fear factor is a big one in forming our opinions of people from other places. The empathy of taste—trying to wrap your head around enjoying those fried toad balls, rather than just eating them on a dare—is something we all need a little more of when developing our global palates.

(via Walrus Magazine)

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Stuff Asian People Like in the News! (again)

Posted July 4th, 2008 by Peter · No Comments

Happy July 4th!!!! Since I’m on vacation and I don’t have enough time to write a proper Stuff Asian People Like post today, I’d like to share where SAPL has been mentioned in the past 4 months. (Yes, we’ve only been around that long).

Here’s our favorite article written by Tina Chadha of the NY/Boston Metro.

Nguyen, and his sister, Nancy, demonstrate Stuff Asians Like No. 35: “Peace Signs.”
Nguyen demonstrates Stuff Asians Like No. 35: “Peace Signs.”

Humor blogs probe racial stereotypes on the Web

TREND. Have you heard that Indian guys love posing for pictures with bottles of alcohol? That Asians perpetually cut in line or that Latinos enjoy flashing their flag at every opportunity possible? You would if you read any of the growing number of blogs created to laugh at the idiosyncrasies of a particular race. These sites — lovingly written by members of the race being lampooned — are spin-offs of the highly popular blog Stuff White People Like, which makes a numerical list dissecting all things liberal, white, middle-class Americans find cool — including No. 27: Marathons, No. 50: Irony and No. 64: Recycling. After only three months, SWPL has garnered 14 million hits, a high-priced book deal for its creator, Christian Lander, and many copycats.

Such as Stuff Asian People Like [ http://www.asian-central.com/stuffasianpeoplelike/], the first in said genre (yes, Peter Nguyen, the blog’s creator, checked the origination dates of all the other similar blogs). “We’ve crashed two Go Daddy [.com] servers already,” says Nguyen. SAL started with 600 hits and in March had over 33,000 unique visitors.
“At first, I kind of freaked out. I didn’t think it would be this popular,” says Charlee Renaud, a 26-year-old lawyer in Louisiana, about her blog Stuff Educated Black People Like [ http://stuffebplike.com/].

“It’s a way to make fun of myself and my friends, ’cause we all do these things,” says Renaud, who came up with post No. 3: Baked Chicken, because her boyfriend ate it at least three times a week, and No. 16: Moving to Atlanta, since everyone in her law school swore they would. “A lot of friends would say, ‘Ah, well, I can’t get a job here in Louisiana; I’m just going to pack up and move to Atlanta, ’cause everybody black is there.’ Which so isn’t true,” Renaud laughs.

Both Nguyen and Renaud say 95 percent of the feedback they get is positive. “A lot of people say, ‘Hey, I do this stuff as well,’” says Renaud. Only a few commentors call them racists.

“I wish there was something I could say to people who don’t get the joke. But I spent four years in grad school, so I’m familiar with people who are humorless,” says Lander, who is flattered by the imitations.

Like Lander’s book deal, Nguyen and Renaud are trying to capitalize on the momentum. Nguyen views his site as a way to unify Asians and get them to discuss less-talked about issues. He has started Asia Central, featuring blogs, videos and news. Renaud is launching a Stuff Educated Black People Like T-shirt line.

Be it observations on the bus, behavior habits of friends or comments from readers, both keep a running list of material and have no plans of slowing down. “We have enough topics for the next five years,” Nguyen says.

Tina CHADHA, Metro, 4/2/08, Original Article, http://www.metro.us

To see a full list, try our Press page
http://www.asian-central.com/news/press/

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Still Vacationing…

Posted July 1st, 2008 by Peter · 3 Comments

You guessed it. I’m still on vacation with my family at this moment, and we will be returning in about a week. Washington’s a really nice state, and I hope Candada’s even going to be better.

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