WTF?!?!? UPDATE

UPDATE:

Click on the widget to go to the KTO page which has the widget with all its vignettes.



So, like Stafford, Robesoyo, and several other bloggers, I've been spammed by an alleged college student who wants my to display the "marketing" widget you see above. Somehow this thing is supposed to make foreigners want to visit Korea by demonstrating to them that they will land and act like complete rubes, be laughed at by Koreans, be beaten and/or killed, and eat things that will make their heads explode into flames (ok, maybe that's fair enough!).

Watching this widget reveals far more about what Korean thinks about foreigners (uncouth idiots) than it reveals any reason a foreigner would want to visit Korea.

I watched this thing for about 15 minutes and jotted down its little scenarios, which I reproduce below. Seventeen out of the twenty-four scenarios unarguably reveal David (our waegook hero) to be a dangerous idiot. What kind of brilliant marketing scheme is that?

• David lands and is amazed that his host family comes out to pick him up.
• He steps into a room without taking his shoes off.
• He plays hacky-sack and, showing off, knocks a bird unconscious, leaving the hacky-sack on the roof.
• He messes up a pot at a ceramics festival
• He eats sam gyap sal correctly
• He drinkes Sikyhe correctly
• At the Lotus lantern festival he tries to hang lanterns and instead falls on his ass, dragging the lanterns down with him.
• At a tea ceremony he actually kind of gets it right.
• He knocks heads with a Korean woman while (apparently?) trying to kiss her.
• Kimchee makes his head explode in flames.
• He puts mud on a Kid’s face and gets a face full back
• He puts on a Hanbok (this, at least, does not end foolishly, although putting “Hanbok” in quotation marks is weird.
• He, apparently, gets on a turtle boat and takes an arrow to the chest.
• He breaks out in tears watching Korean TV while two Koreans just kind of stare at him
• He doesn’t know what a Dolmen is
• The Hampyeong Butterfly festival goes ok
• He breaks into a traditional dance and gyrates like an idiot
• He is boggled that a Korean child can say “hello” (amazing, considering that it is rare you can pass ANY Korean children without getting volleys of hellos)
• He falls asleep while meditating and gets whacked with a stick by a monk
• He chases a Korean girl, causing her to fall and hurt her ankle
• He gets smacked with a stick for not “listening to his teacher”
• He fantasizes he is Moses parting the seas and gets roundly laughed at by locals
• He kicks a Korean in the balls while practicing Taekwondo
• At the observatory in Cheomseongdae he makes up an imaginary constellation. It is ridiculous and it roars at him and scares him