PSY - Hangover (ft. Snoop Dogg) - Korean Easter Eggs

Step 1: Watch Korean rapper PSY's newest music video for a song called "Hangover". Step 2: Seriously reconsider your life choices. Step 3: Rewind to watch again, this time taking note of everything in the video that is completely unique to Korea.

Here we go!

0:30 - PSY and Snoop Dogg vigorously brush their teeth. Koreans take brushing seriously.
0:45 - Hite Dry Finish beer.
0:56 - a 편의점 (pyeon-e-jeom), or convenience store, where you can sit and eat the snacks you've just bought, including...
1:00 - small glass bottles of energy drinks with who-knows-what ingredients inside,
1:11 - and 삼각김밥 (samgak-kimbap), triangle kimbap, and cup noodles (라면/ramyeon).
1:15 - a Korean sauna (I don't think they usually have green fountains, though).
1:35 - copious amounts of 소주 (soju), Korea's most popular liquor.
1:47 - hardy 아줌마 (ajumma), or older Korean women who can drink you under the table.
2:03 - 택시 (taxi).
2:04 - I just noticed the illustrated background is Seoul, with Namsan Tower and 63 Building visible. Also, PSY is now playing a bottle of Hite instead of a saxophone.
2:10 - 동일이발소 (dongil ilbaso) means "Sameness Barbershop"
2:28 - 노래방 (noraebang), a karaoke party room, complete with disco lights and a tambourine!
2:39 - PSY is drinking a can of something with PSY on it?
2:45 - the lyrics read, "누군지 한번에 알아낼 너의 단 한사람," from the song "나를 슬프게 하는 사람들" ("People Who Make Me Sad") by 이승기.
2:48 - BOA's "Rock With You".
2:55 - G-Dragon!
3:20 - Disco Pang Pang!
3:33 - Pool halls, where some of my old students now spend all of their free time chalking their cues instead of studying.
3:45 - PSY is eating 짜장면 (jjajangmyeon), black-bean noodles.
3:58 - a traditional bar for 막걸리 (makkeoli), Korean rice wine, where Snoop Dogg looks like he's dressed in somewhat traditional clothes (and PSY is in a Kill Bill-esque jump suit? I don't know who the girl is).
4:10 - the shake-and-chop method of opening soju bottles in order to rid it of poisonous impurities.
4:19 - love shots!
4:20 - opening a bottle of beer with a Korean metal spoon.
4:39 - delivery guys (they are not usually on fire, though) with Chinese food.
4:42 - oblivious 아저씨 (ahjussi), older Korean man.

And that's all I could catch!. What did I miss?

P.S. Please don't get any ideas about what Korean drinking culture is really like from this music video. Please also hope that rappers will stop objectifying women in their videos in the near future. But do enjoy the craziness of the video, because that same craziness is what made PSY a global phenomenon in the first place.

Disco pang-pang (Daegu pt. 2)

I'm going to have to do some research into the origin of this name. Disco pang-pang (디스코 팡팡; perhaps officially known as a tagada ride?) is a thrill ride designed, as it would seem, purely for disorientation, discomfort, and disbelief. It is a large, circular disc with a single padded bench all along the circumference, seats facing inward. It spins, wobbles, and bounces, and there are no restraints (literally or figuratively). I'm not kidding; there are no seat belts or harnesses. The thing just goes nuts as people hang on for dear life and strobe lights flash and heavy K-pop blasts and you know what? It's absolutely fun.

So part two of my Daegu adventure involved meeting up with my Fulbright Orientation roommate Jet, who's teaching at Daegu boys' high school, grabbing dinner, and then discovering this hellish torture-cum-entertainment device, fittingly located underground next to a video game arcade.

For a mere 4,000₩, one gets to ride the disco pang-pang for a whopping twenty minutes, including a two-minute breather for people who have forgotten to breathe. The ride operator had a hilarious mean streak; while he did give everyone the opportunity to be mercilessly bounced on the higher end of the ride, rotating everyone around so that we'd all end up in the hot seat at least once, he happened to pick on foreigners a lot more. Jet and I were the token Americans, and we were seated next to a group of Vietnamese girls who looked like they regretted their decision to ride the pang-pang. Guess which side of the circle got the longest and most insane bouncing? Yup. ("WHERE ARE YOU FROM?" he asked us over a loudspeaker. "OH, Miguk? YEAH," *insert unintelligible Korean that's probably something like "Take that, foreigners! Bounce bounce bounce!"*)

I managed to take a few videos with my phone... I apologize for the brief profanity! I was kind of on an adrenaline rush.

And here is video #2. This is the part of the ride where the operator would pick on people to bounce just for the lulz. He was definitely trying to make them tumble out of their seats. It was hilarious! (Watch for the end, when Jet nearly falls out of his seat!)

When our ride was over, I wasn't dizzy but just kind of in disbelief at what I had just spent the past twenty minutes doing. Thanks, Jet, for showing me around Daegu, treating me to my very first disco pang-pang, and being awesome! Thanks, Korea, for being crazy enough to have this ridiculous thing and leaving an impression that I won't soon forget!

Jet 씨 at the over-priced Italian restaurant we went to, smiling because risotto for dinner is much better than spam.