Month: September 2016

My first racist ‘attack’ in Europe and what I learned from it

Published by

Image source: Daum Blog Caption: Choose the wrong option. (the artist is mocking the idea of racism by using a multiple-choice question format popular in Korean education) Last Friday, I was leaving a supermarket when a group of young, white, mostly male, Dutch people ran up to me, took a photo of me, then ran away laughing. I froze, ran into MediaMarkt, the electronics store next door, which I was headed to originally, and stayed there for a good fifteen minutes before I went outside, looked around and made sure they were gone, got on my bike and pedaled back home. I asked myself if what had happened had really just happened. Yes. I saw the flash. I heard them laugh. I was sure. Back home, I sat down and wrote an angry and descriptive post along the lines of: “To the white, male, Dutch youth who just took a picture of me in front of the supermarket on this street, go fuck yourselves, go get cancer, go crash into a train. Same to the people who have …

[Documentary] Inside Korea’s Billion-Dollar Beauty Industry (i-D, 2016)

Published by

Episode 1 Grace faces Korea’s traditional beauty standards, and is wildly stared at by passers-by. She talks to a young Korean woman who embodies Korea’s obsession with beauty. “How would you feel if you could never wear makeup again?” “I will die” Episode 2 Grace talks to Korean tattoo artist Apro and gets passport photos of her made, heavily photoshopped so she looks ‘normal’ Episode 3 Grade sees Soljee, a young Korean woman, reveal her tattoos to her parents for the first time. Episode 4 Grace meets a gang member and asks about the relationship between gangs and tattoos in Korea. She also meets a young woman who’s getting her first-ever tattoo. After seeing the young woman’s tattoo, her father decides to get one.