#funkoreafacts

[onewhich]

Waaaaat and there is no other countries w cat/dog cafe??!?!?

[onewhich]

Did you know?

A very old-fashion styled phone has just released in Korea.

It's called 고삼폰 (go sam phone, meaning High School Senior Phone').

--> '고' is from 고등학교(high school) and 삼 is 3, so 고삼 is High School 3rd grade, which is the highest grade before college. 

It only has call feature -- no text/internet/MP3 player feature -- so it's literally the earlier times phone (or rather a beeper) with only a prettier design. 

It's a little smaller and lighter than iPhone 3GS, and because it only has one feature (making calls) the battery lasts for almost forever. 

It's targeted for students who are easily distracted by smartphones or old people who actually don't need various smartphone features.

Sad sucks that some students have to cut their needs for study...

[onewhich]

silver lining? yes!

This year's voter turnout in Korea is significantly higher than the last time's. While last year only recorded 63.03%, as of 3:00 p.m. it already reached 59%. I wanna know the final turnout soon! 중앙선거관리위원회 (Central Election Management Commission; CEMC) predicts it'll be 77.97% this year. 

This is great since 1) higher turnout means citizens' higher power and influence over politicians, 2) people are actually paying more attention and responsibility.

+ I wish there were more people in 20s who vote.... the future depends on them and the rate is still low :( 

[onewhich]

MEANWHILE in KOREA... it's presidential election day!

+ Wonder Girls' Ye-Eun taking 인증샷 in front of the balloting place. 

I see a lot of people in Korea taking 인증샷/verification shot* after casting ballots.

There are, though, poses that you're not allowed to do when taking 인증샷s.

1. thumbs-up pose

2. the "V" pose

3. doing 'ok' sign with hand(s).  

*인증하다 is to verify, or to prove, and '샷(shot)' usually refers to photos in Korean. 

[onewhich]

Because of bizarre patent fight between Apple & Samsung, there has been a parody of those fight in Korea's #1 comedy show 'Gag Concert.' It's called 이기적인 특허소 (Selfish Patent) or in short, 이특. 

So the guy on the top is called "Steve Box" and his product is "아이뻐 (Ah ee po), meaning "Ah, pretty."

And the guy at the bottom is promoting "걘역시 (Gen yuk shi), meaning "That man tops it all." 

[onewhich]

Korea ranked 3rd as 'Night Owls'

한국인들, '올빼미족' 세계 3위.

AC Nielsen research says Koreans ranked 3rd for going to bed late next to Portugal and Taiwan. This means Koreans going to bed after midnight are 68%, and 25% of Koreans go to bed after 1am.

The rank goes to 4-7th to Hong Kong, Spain, Japan, and Singapore, and the "early birds (종달새족)" are those from Vietnam, Philippines, and Denmark. 

SOURCE: http://www.chosun.com/international/news/200502/200502130093.html

[onewhich]

TL;DR ver./ summary: Korea has strange buying behavior, failing Wal-Mart and preventing amazon.com and Itunes store to launch in Korea, yet there are a lot of people who aspire for random products like Yankee Candle and Terra chips. What do you think the reason behind is? 

[TL ver here]

It's funny that Wal-Mart failed in Korea, and over 80% of Koreans are using Android/Samsung smartphone over iPhone.

Amazon.com is successful in China and Japan, but I don't think it ever launched + and won't probably launch in Korea because there already is a big low-price online heaven "gmarket.com." 

And Wal-Mart was just taken by E-Mart in Korea. E-Mart is almost a monopoly in Korea, it's slowly killing local stores and traditional markets. 

+ There is no Itunes store in Korea; not only because of the concern of illegal downloads of music, but also because Koreans these days aren't willing to pay $.99 for a song. The record market in Korea in 70s, 80s, and early 90s was just flourishing. People nowadays think general music quality has lowered a lot, and songs are no longer respected as product worth buying. 

There is, though, music store called "melon" where you pay about $2.5 (that's 3000 won) a month and download whatever music you'd like. I heard that they now want to increase the fee, but everyone predicts that Melon will fail after then.

YET there are a lot of people who wanting to buy American stuffs like Yankee candle, Terra chips, and Welch's snack products. There's even a private company/individuals who buy wholesales in mass amount then sell to Koreans via blgs/websites. 

Even though I'm Korean myself, I don't get it, I get it if it was some foreign clothes that's not in Korea, but candles? Hey, they're pretty much everywhere.. Terra chips, is unique and got famous because this top-notch famous actress got into a department store and bought the chips while she was craving for it during her pregnancy (turns out that it was a rumor, she spoke about it a lot later though, rumor has spread too much). 

Wal-Mart, Phones, Musics.... well I think the low-priced retail stores in Korea already was big by then, and was already so suited for Koreans. And Samsung was dominating the phone market even before the smartphone era.. and Music, I already explained. 

But those craze over candle, Abercrombie stuffs (A&F and Holister.co launced this year, and is a huge success but there are still a lot of on/offline purchase from the US directly), and even those snacks... I think it's a niche market, and there really is 'American/Western Wave' in Korea, just as there are Hally elsewhere. 

[onewhich]

Korean sentences that can be read backwards and still the same as the original sentence. Fascinating!

다들 잠들다. (Everyone falls asleep)

다시 합창 합시다. (Let's sing together again)

여보 안경 안 보여. (Honey, I can't find my glasses)

색갈은 짙은 갈색. (This color is deep brown)

다 이심전심이다. (Everyone has telepathy)

--> 이신전심(以心傳心), means knowing what someone knows. Translation of '이심전심' is said as "telepathy" in the dictionary too. Hard to find the right translation...

야 이 달은 밝은 달이야. (Hey, this moon is bright)

다 가져가다. (Takes everything)

소주 만 병만 주소. (Give me just 10,000 bottles of Soju pls)

생선 사 가는 가사 선생. (A housework teacher buying some fish)

--> There is a subject called "가사" which teaches students about cooking/sewing/other chores in Korea. "Housework" was the best that I could come up w.