In what one commenter has called, “The most egregious incident of mass pixellation I’ve ever seen,” Korea Beat breaks the story for the English blogosphere. Evidently, a club in Gangnam is causing quite a stir, er, scandal, after Yonhap News released risque photos (SFW) of young Koreans doing the bumping and the grinding, otherwise known as boobi boobi (부비부비), or basically the sort of thing good Christian church-going moms would view as the devil’s work. (read more…)

The Chosun reports a plastic surgeon in Seoul has found the ‘ideal korean male’ face from combining composite images of the top male stars in entertainment, and he has come up with… Kwon Sang-woo’s little brother. Over-simplifying the beauty tenet of “averages,” Dr. Rhee Seung-chul, the head of plastic surgery at Hanil General Hospital, combined the faces of male leads such as Kang Dong-won, Kwon Sang-woo, Bae Yong-joon and others using a sophisticated computer program called Balanced Angular and Proportional Analysis (BAPA), or otherwise known as What Celebrity Do You Look Like? (picture inside…)

Hey, why not? There’s portable soju. Jean Oh of the Herald covers wine in a can. As she stated, pickings are slim, so here is where you can find them. Updated: Wine a box at Lotte Mart, too! (more…)

Matthew Lamers of the Expat Living section of the Korea Herald also writes:

“A growing gap between a traditional Korea and a cosmopolitan, ‘cool’ Korea is partly to blame for the country’s branding problem overseas, because the country’s leaders are promoting Korean industry and tradition at the expense of its vibrant youth culture.” (more…)

In an effort to encourage foreigners to start businesses in Korea and create jobs and new economic growth, the Seoul Global Center (SGC) is offering three free courses in English. These courses are taught by KOTRA (Korea Trade Investment Promotion Agency) experts and they will help potential foreign business entrepreneurs with the basics on how to start a business and other important skills needed to grow your company. (more…)

What’s the secret to perfect ramen? Well, it’s in the soup, of course. Here’s a quick recipe for the best tasting ramen! (more…)

Somewhere some marketing genius hound has added to a long line of generational nicknames with “1723,” which stands for, ahem, 17-23 year olds in Korea. (more…)

The Bounce Back Book

Ask any college-age American their net worth or their spending limit, and oftentimes they mistakenly factor in their credit card limits as though those numbers were virtual money. But whether by virtue of massive debts already accumulated or the desire to save for the future, Korea attracts its share of English teachers who have a sound financial strategy. (more…)