The Japanese Love "The Koreans" and Being an Insider at "The Outsider"

From time to time I take a look at my little hit counter and see how many people are reading this thing. (To be truthful, I obsess over it.) Anyways, the average daily visitors has gone up from about 15 to 30 to 60 over the last few months; however, yesterday 251 people (or 502 'eyes') came to my little blog, which was quite remarkable (about 4 TIMES the recent usual). I took a look at where they were linking from and there were 2 main places:

1. This Cyworld homepage (get this, there are about 45 million people in Korea, and about 20 million Cyworld homepages) where the gal has a tribute to The Koreans and were actually standing next to me at the concert on Saturday! (Actual referring page is here.)

2. (The big one.) This site (entirely in Japanese) seems to be where they all came from (scroll down to #161). My readers from Japan jumped from almost nothing to #3 in the charts.

What's more, my The Koreans Rocked Seoul posting is now my #1 looked-at page. Well, I don't know how sticky all of this traffic will be, but it's interesting to see what people are interested in and where they are from. To quote 'shit-break' from American Pie after the webcam incident: "God bless the Internet".

Ok, back to dry land now. (That doesn't make much sense.) Last night I went out for 'work' with one of our office workers and a guy from a partner firm (they do the investment trust management). We went out for dinner then to 'my' bar, The Outsider. It's a neat place, everyone there knows me: I sometimes go 4-5 times a week (even twice in a night if I get a call from my bud 동준/DongJoon, who lives in the same building, to go out for a drink). Lately I've toned it down a bit, but my status is still alive and well (even if my liver isn't).


John and me at The Outsider (from a while back).

Every night at 10PM they have something special. On Mondays the bar-girls sing a song on stage, Wednesdays is when a singer and/or pianist does their thing on stage and Fridays are Bingo-nights (I won a ball a while back, remember?).


Fantastic pianist and accomplished singer at The Outsider.


Mr. Yoon listening intently to John's pearls of wisdom.

You know, I call him Mr. Yoon, but I'm actually a few months older than he is. That's the thing here. I call (more or less) 'Westernized' guys (like John) by their English names and 'pure' Koreans by their Korean names. Anyone else do that?


Mr. Yoon again, just in case you didn't get a good look at him in the last pic.

One of the songs playing (not sung, mind you) was Sting's Englishman in New York. I wonder how it would sound it I wrote it? I wonder...

I don't eat soondae, I'll have sausages
I like my kimchi nice and fresh
Here in Seoul there ain't much snow
I'm a Canadian in Yeouido

See me walking past 포장마차/pojang-macha [streetfood restaurants]
I won't dare set foot inside
I was sick one time and that's enough
I'm a Canadian in Yeouido

I'm an alien, I'm an E-7 alien
I'm a Canadian in Yeouido
I'm an alien, I'm an E-7 alien
I'm a Canadian in Yeouido

If knowing Korean gets you a discount here
I will study all the time
You know I like to haggle for everything I buy
Top quality, and never pay full price
Top quality, and never pay full price

I'm an alien, I'm an E-7 alien
I'm a Canadian in Yeouido
I'm an alien, I'm an E-7 alien
I'm a Canadian in Yeouido

A smile and a wink, will get you more than you think
Koreans love a bright and cheerful face
Gentleness, sobriety don't work in this society
Over here tea-tottlers are out of place

Just one more drink and we're done tonight
Now that you're finished: just one more
We've got a bottle of whiskey here in front of us
And four more empty rattling on the floor

Never leave a glass empty for long
They will think you're very crass
When you're drunk, there's no need to be polite
You can belch and scratch your ass
You can belch and scratch your ass...

I'm an alien, I'm an E-7 alien
I'm a Canadian in Yeouido
I'm an alien, I'm an E-7 alien
I'm a Canadian in Yeouido

And on that note...time for work.