Cosmojin, a tour company based out of South Korea, polled 3,000 VIPs about their impressions of South Korea. Women certainly stood out as one of their strongest impressions. The VIPs remarked how Korean women were so tall, thin and beautiful, almost resembling movie stars. However, though Korean women were well dressed, their sense of fashion was certainly not diverse and they appear to be a population of similarly dressed automatons. Interesting, very interesting. For more on the other findings, go to Naver (it’s in Korean)>

John Huer of the Korea Times is writing a series on the “10 Most Wonderful Things about Korea,” and his latest entry is about Korean women over the age of 60.  This is dear to me because my own mother is in her mid-sixties.  This particular demographic, whether living in Korea or elsewhere, has witnessed many significant events in history and have also suffered along the way.

Mr. Huer characterizes this demographic with their “sweetness and charitable disposition.”   This same group has witnssed the “trauma and transformation of Korean society.”  Read more…

Very interesting editorial from Jaemin Kim in the Huffington Post about American society and their perceptions of Asian woman.

Asian-American women suffer a stunning exception to hard-fought notions about racial equality applied to other minority groups. It is a societal norm to reduce an Asian woman to a sexualized stereotype, a one-faceted “thing” that is exclusively an object of desire. It is with breathtaking ease that even Gawker — read and written by an educated, urbane class — thinks nothing of endorsing this dangerous bigotry.

I repeat: these stereotypes are dangerous. Reducing Asian women into a sexual object is not funny, it is not flattering. It is perilous. We can see this when Asian women are subject to race-targeted sexual violence. The racist nature of the crimes go unrecognized and unpunished, as if there is nothing wrong with choosing a rape victim because she is Asian.  Read>

There’s a funny Michael J Fox movie called “The Secret of my Success,” and early in the movie, MJF is intreviewing desperately for a job in New York.  I can’t recall  exactly but MJF pleads with the hiring manager that he will do anything for a job, and the response is if he can be a minority female.  Now that movie was from the 80s and the times have changed.  It’s a new world now with Barack Obama as President, and I think he is symbolic of the changing faces of America.  The Dong-A Ilbo makes note of how Korea-American women are rising in stature and influence in the US.  So why exactly?  The simple reason is that the second generation Korean-American women are educated in the US and also society has become increasingly open.  Don’t you luv it?!  Read>