Clever Turtles

I'm not very alert right now so the translation isn't as clear as I could have made it.

Check the original the see some of the actual pictures. I would point out that careful camera angles and the weird photogenic grimaces are likely as much a factor as makeup.

Original from Sports Seoul.

A beautiful woman's shocking un-made up face . . . Noise at the release of before-and-after pictures of the makeup of Chinese women

This is a horrible case and I hope the woman involved is able to recover. This strikes rather close to home because this occurred not too far from where Autumn (our ever-absent co-blogger) and I lived (at adjacent one-year intervals).

I had to translate this just because of the line about "the European tradition of nudity". Any fancy fellows from Europe care to explain?

It is a weird little article, covering two very different cases in two very different places, and failing to offer any parallels to the Korean labor market. Kind of a random "crazy foreigners" story.

Apparently there was recently a conference on issues of transgendered individuals in prisons.

I don't have much more information on the conference aside from the Yonhap article, but it looks to be more focused on transgender issues than other queer issues. Nothing wrong with that, exactly, but it seems that in Korea, there is a tendency to be more comfortable with issues of gender reassignment than gender non-normative behavior.

If this is true, it is yet more evidence of Asian entertainment agencies being extremely exploitative of their contracted figures.

If it is a hoax or publicity stunt, that probably reflects even more unfavorably about how the agencies operate.

Original at Sports Seoul.

"How much will you spend?" Chinese beautiful singer, escort video release 'scandal'

[Sportsseoul.com - Intern reporter Yu Song-hyon]

This sounds like a really tragic story. After the recent relevations about the case of Chang Cha-yon pointed towards a pattern of public and private sexual exploitation of female entertainers, it is easy to jump to conclusions. But even if it is not attributable to exploitation or disapproval of her performance of an erotic role, it is still a sad case. She's a lovely lady who is apparently suffering from a very serious problem, and I hope that the worst fears are not confirmed.

When I first came to Korea, I was completely mystified by the Korean text messages I would get from unknown numbers asking to meet up. It was a hand-me-down phone; were they acquaintances of the previous owner? No, it was the highly developed Korean sex industry.

Continuing my trend of translating articles about how smartphones are a horrible technology, here is an article about how social networking apps are being put to good use by the prostitution industry.

So if you want to hook up with Korean women, drive a fancy car.

Honestly, I got pretty bored with this article myself, while translating it.

Original from Asia Kyongjae.

3 out of 4 women, "Marriage interview men, a car is necessary."

It is apparent that the car a man drives has considerable influence at a marriage interview. Three out of four women surveyed indicated that at a marriage interview, the car that their counterpart drives influences their impression of them.

Original on New Daily.

Pyongyang restaurants sell food by day, sex by night

Recently, a Mr. Kim (39), a resident of Kumsong Ward in Pyongyang city's Mangyongdae district, said on Open Radio for North Korea, "Since the 2000s prosititution began to popular in the general restaurants in Pyongyang, and now it is spreading even further."

Really, Jose, are you disappointed?

So apparently the lesbian experience in college is more a product of popular imagination than actual cultural experience, according to a CDC study carried in the NYTimes.

Of course, this provoked me to think about the Korean case, as everything I ever read does. It's on the brain, man. Like kuru.