Korean women – 스마트 아줌마 Smart Ajumma

MINA2016 and smart ajumma

I just came back home. MINA (Mobile Innovation Network Australasia) 2016 was an amazing experience to meet other researchers and their fabulous works. I also presented my PhD project in MINA 2016 and I feel glad people who were there know who ajummas are and why ajummas need to be considered as smart ajummas today. 15 mins weren’t enough to talk everythinf about my project in detail, but thank MINA, I could’ve shared my beloved research project with other researchers.

New blog entries about ajummas will be coming soon.

Come and Gone

Recent heat waves have lasted almost one month in South Korea. We had to endure the tropical nights. In this heat I sank into a state of torpor. I must confess, I couldn’t do anything during last one month include blogging. But there’s an end to everything and I finally could smell a bit of ‘autumn’ from the wind during the last weekend. No more heat waves and I don’t need to endure and worry about the tropical nights anymore. Autumn has come at last I see, smell and feel.

Screen Shot 2016-08-29 at 2.51.17 PM.png — Seoul, 27/08/2016

And I got a new idea to start as a part of my personal research project from this September. (I know there’re so many things that I tried to do last few months and I finally found this idea as a new project that I will be doing for next few months) I will connect two different time and spaces through using digital mobile devices or social media. This will be about a Korean woman who lived a life of extreme ups and downs. I will explain more about this new project in the next blog post.

Autumn has come at last and hot summer has gone.

Ajummas are in Mobile Bang [room]

Smart ajummas are watching DMB in the subway (Please do not use this photo without a permission!!! 사진의 무단도용, 게시 및 재가공을 금지합니다)

I found this photo from one of my twitter friends today. These two ajummas put their mobile phone on the triport and watching TV through DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting) while they’re travelling in the subway in Seoul. They share the earphones as well.

I already wrote about how the subway is important for Seoulite’s daily life in my Master’s thesis that is called ‘Mobile Bang (2010)’. The subway shouldn’t be considered as just a sort of public transport. Rather it means a lot more for people in Seoul or South Korea. I call it as a Mobile Bang (room in English) and commuters do various things in the subway especially through uaing their smartphones while they’re travelling.

We’re now having very hot and humid days in South Korea (35c/70-80 % humidity). People want to find any place where they can avoid hot and humid weather. The subway could be one of those places I think. So I really love this photo and want to share these Smart Ajummas in Mobile Bang with you.

Thank you for my friend (from twitter) who allowed me to use this photo for this blog.

Zoomatoon(1), Hello Ajumma!

I can hear so many ajummas call other middle-aged women as ‘Ajumma’. For example, middle-aged women customers (ajummas) call other middle-aged women sellers, “Ajumma! How much is this?”. But when seller ajummas call customer ajummas, “Ajumma! Try some our Kimchi!”, customer ajummas feel uncomfortable. (I experienced so many times these situations when I went to market to buy something) In fact, the seller ajummas never call customer ajummas as ‘Ajumma’. Never!

This is irony because ajummas call other ajummas as an ajumma but those ajummas don’t want to be called as an ajumma by others include ajummas.

Why? What’s wrong with that?

Art project about ajummas

I found some art project about ajummas. These exhibitions were already over but I would like share some images and webpage links with anyone who are interested in art project about ajummas.

1.아줌마 부루스 展/ Ajumma Blues

(click the image to visit the website)

2.괜찮아 잘될거야 조진성/It will be okay by Jin Sung Cho

(click the image to visit the website)

3.연극 ‘뽀글이 아줌마 봉숙이’/The play ‘Curly hair ajumma, Bong-Sook’

(click the image to visit the website)

I keep thinking about making any ‘art’ project about ajumma but I need some more time. The project should be related to my previous video, ‘Digital Ppal-let-ter’.

Ajummas and plastic surgery

I’m not sure whether I can write about the topic of ‘plastic surgery’ in this blog or not. But I think plastic surgery could be categorised as a part of ‘beauty’ or ‘beauty industry’ in Korea (and many other countries) so I can concern about this issue in this blog. Well, plastic surgery is a very common thing for most Koreans (not every Koreans I have to say) in these days. There are various types of plastic surgery that help people to be satisfied with their appearances and sometimes inner sides,too. As they change or (I can say) upgrade their appliances through plastic surgery, people are able to have more confidences than before (especially, people who are not happy with their appearances). Of course there is side effect of plastic surgery but one thing we surely know that plastic surgery is a sort of popular culture in Korea now.

Before I wrote this blog entry today, I did research how ajummas concern about plastic surgery in Korea. Well, I still need to do a lot more and deeper research about the relationship between ajummas and plastic surgery, but one thing I found that many of ajummas are interested in doing plastic surgery and many of them also already experienced of having plastic surgery as well. And (I need to do more research about this but at this stage but) I found that the purposes of doing plastic surgery and preferred body part (or face part) are quite different according to different age group. For example, married middle aged women (it didn’t specify the actual age range in its report) wanted to do liposuction surgery (especially for reducing abdominal fat) the most according to the report. (http://bntnews.hankyung.com/apps/news?popup=0&nid=05&c1=05&c2=05&c3=00&nkey=201103291205063&mode=sub_view)

In addition, there are apps for plastic surgery as well. I just found some of them and need to research more about this ‘beauty app’ asap. Here is an example of plastic surgery app that is called, ‘App Miin’. App is for application and Miin means a beauty in Korean. So it means application beauty. Users are able to try virtual plastic surgery through using this app and they can make estimate for the plastic surgery in the future as well.

(click the image above, it goes to the website of App Miin, https://itunes.apple.com/kr/app/aebmiin)

I take a profound interest in the things that are related to beauty industry, women and digital media. Thus I keep thinking about the research that I will do for the next. (another research idea is in my mind, too)

Ajummas are in Live Photo

Music credit: Peppertones, ‘For all dancers’ (less than 5 seconds, looping)

I just played with the keynote to create a live photo video for this blog. All the videos are made with (include Digital Ppal-let-ter project) photos and keynote. This looping live photo video reminds me a rhizome movie (by Adrian Miles) that we’ve learnt at RMIT almost 10 years ago. I’m thinking to create short video clips (like this) through using keynote, live photo and maybe photo collage.

Ajumma fans at the concert, so what?

Fandom culture is very strong in Korea as well as other countries. A variety types of fan clubs are formed and those fans do many activities for their ‘stars’. Like other communities, fan clubs are considered as one of communities with people who got the similar interests each other. In this case, similar interest should be a ‘star’. A star could be sportswoman/man, actors, artists, singers, models, writers, filmmakers, politicians (maybe?), or even characters of animation or comic books whom are living in the imaginary space. Among these examples of fan club, I would like to talk about a case of one of band’s fan club in Korea.

Twitter is a sort of an intersection for people to share common or uncommon ideas and thoughts. I didn’t use tweeter for last few years but now I’m one of active users of tweeter. There are many reasons why I use twitter but one reason could be that it is useful to share information from other fans about my favourite singer. At the same time, we could share the concert review with each other after every concert. Actually I’m not a very active fan like other fans, but I could be an active fan through interactive communication with other fans on twitter whom I followed. Even though we never tweetup before but we meet almost everyday on twitter. It is so glad to know someone who have same interests with me and share our thoughts about the same thing together.

However, it happened few days ago. There is another online community website for this singer and a sort of a quarrel between fans was occurred. These fans argue about something related to the singer on the BBS. I have no interest in this online community website at all, so I didn’t know about this website that much. But one thing I knew about this website is that most of them who take very active roles are quite younger than other old fans of the singer. Anyway, there’s a quarrel between fans and one of fans wrote her or his thought on the BBS. I was outraged at the way she/he had written. Here is a sentence that makes me uncomfortable.

“Some of old fans are annoying and they’re mean towards younger fans, and you know what? The concert was teeming with ajumma fans!!!”

Well, it was interesting to me to know what younger people consider old woman (they think over 30s is ‘old’, she/he wrote). And it’s not shocking the way this kind of people think about ajummas or old woman because I’m a researcher or a sort of expert of ajumma research, so I know. But I was angry to read that sentence because of their old-fashioned mind or thinking about women, especially old women (over 30s is OLD? of course it is not young age but not too old yet?).

(Ajumma fans at the Yong Pil Cho‘s concert, image from: http://5505.ohmynews.com, or click the image to visit the website)

What’s wrong with old women? (over 30s?) Is there any law and regulations that old women (over 30s) are prohibited to come to the concert? And what’s wrong with ajummas? Okay, if they’re official ajummas, SO WHAT? You know what? The singers you like are over 30s too. Then, why do you think only female fans who are over 30s should be treated as annoying ajummas? As I mentioned in previous post, I think they have a sort of misogynistic perspective towards women, especially non-younger women.

According to them, I’m an ajumma because I’m over 30. But I will keep going and enjoying their concert as much as I can. I don’t care what others think about ajummas (women who are over 30s, they said). But one thing that I feel disappointed is their prejudiced and outdated view of ajummas. Oh, don’t forget! You’ll be an ajumma very soon, too.

Ajumma-Selca by Incheong Lee 2008

(Click the photo above, there are more photos of Ajumma-Selca and information about this project (but in Korean))

I found Korean artist Incheong Lee’s Ajumma-Selca by chance this morning. There aren’t enough references or related articles about her ‘Ajumma-Selca’ but I realised that how her artwork and Digital Ppal-let-ter (and Smart Ajumma research) are similar with each other in some ways. Of course these two different project are about Ajummas but they’re not only talking about a profound discourse of Ajummas. Rather I (and maybe she as well) tried to express the daily life of ajummas pleasantly. (I know there was, is and will be a controversy over talking about ajummas, using the title of ajummas, and etc.)

Anyway, Lee’s Ajumma-Selca is about a tiring and tedious (or sometimes enjoyable as well) daily life of ajummas. She put the wooden-ajumma doll in the situated frame (e.g. kitchen) of photos to reflect her (or other ajummas) lives. Thus, the each photo is a sort of ‘ajumma-selca’ that shows ajumma-selves through a wooden ajumma doll.

Yakult Ajumma is now on The Wall Street Journal!

(Click the image to read the news article about Yakult Ajumma by The Wall Street Journal)

The Wall Street Journal reported about Korean Yakult Ajumma (delivery women they described) and their mobile yakult cart. It is so exciting to read about our Yakult Ajumma in the wall street journal! I’ve already written about them in my blog, ‘Smart Yakult Ajumma(25/01/2016)‘.

A trot song is for ajummas?

I’ve already posted this video of Digital Ppal-let-ter project that is a part of my research project. For this video, I used two trot songs as a background music. When I chose these trot songs as bg music, I thought that using this kind of songs for my video should enhance people to get inspired for better understanding about Korean culture. Well, we have K-Pop (idols, girl groups, etc.) but for me, these songs are inadequate to support my video project that is about Ajummas who are women in Korea. I consider choosing songs and I finally found one song that is about ajummas. The song called, Ajumma by Jinah Tae has very simple lyrics but it encourages ajummas to keep enjoying their lives as ajummas in Korea. Also, there’re not enough (maybe this song is the only song about Ajummas with positive lyrics as far as I know) songs about ajummas. I’ve changed songs for the video several times and I discussed carefully about choosing music with my supervisors all the time. Finally, I put that song for my video and I believed and still believe that the song supports the story (or research) of the video. Moreover, it enhances people (audiences) to somewhat better understand Korean ajummas’ culture. But, some people criticised the usage of this song for the video about ajummas. They thought this song (trot songs) is cheesy and it could remind audiences about stereotypes of ajummas. In other words, the trot songs are cheesy and not classy songs. So the purpose of choosing the cheesy trot song for the video is because ‘I (a researcher)’ look down upon Ajummas.

Okay, I accept those feedback or criticism from others. But, let me talk about this again. The problem is not about a song in this video, I think. The problem is ourselves. I know how women in Korea were persecuted under patriarchal society for ages so Korean women had to receive unfair treatment only because we were women. One of Korean female group, ajummas, they were also treated, showed, described and accepted negatively. For many reasons, being ajummas and calling as ajummas is not pleasant. But, in my experiences, we (women) disdain ajummas, being ajummas and living as ajummas so many times and cases. In the case of using that trot song for the video, I never assume that trot songs are for ajummas and ajummas have no interest of listening pop songs, hiphop or electronic music. My mum loves listening to classical music and one of my friend enjoys listening to trot musics. I don’t generalise any thing between different generations. Of course, there are preferences of something between different generations, but I always think I shouldn’t generalise people only because their age differences.

If they (people who criticised me of using trot songs for this video) think the usage of trot songs for this video is because I have a prejudice against ajummas, then I want to say them to break your biased perspective about ajummas first. It will take time to change but I want to keep writing that calling as ajummas and being ajummas are not that unpleasant thing what some people detest to be ajummas.

miso-ajumma?

“Don’t call us as ajumma!”, “You just try to glorify ajummas!”, “Ajummas are different people from us, they’re low-educated and from the countryside!”

I can’t write every single reaction from people when I presented my research about Ajumma in one conference last time. Yes, I was pretty shock to get those reactions. They were Korean middle-aged women. They’re all working moms and I don’t want to specify their personal backgrounds any more.

When I wrote about Yeohyeom (misogyny in some way) before, I thought there is ‘miso-ajumma‘ in Korea as well. Misogyny is combined by two words, miso+gyny so I just combined miso and ajumma which means dislike of ajummas. I know the people (not every one) are not happy about ajummas and people don’t want to be (or called as) ‘ajummas’ at the same time. The title of ajumma is for middle-aged women in Korea. I already explained the origin of the word ajumma, there’s no such negative meanings are included with the word ajumma. One of the women from the conference argued that using the word ajumma is only for the maid women or women who served in the restaurants. And another woman also told me that the word ajummas should be used only for older women who are low-educated, full-time housewives with ajummarous fashion style. WHAT?????

I know calling as ‘ajummas’ are still unwelcome thing for women in Korea because of biased perspective about ajummas through various types of media (TV dramas, commercials, blogs, social media etc.) we meet everyday. But I don’t understand why calling women as ‘ajummas’ is such insulting remarks? And why those middle-aged women (who don’t want to be called as ajummas) have condescending attitude and thought about ajummas? (the maid, low-educated, etc.)

I found miso-ajumma from this experience. Why did they think ‘middle-aged women’ are better than ‘ajummas’? What kind of standards do they base their conclusion on? Like an example of Kim Yeo-sa (Mrs. Kim), some or many of ajummas are the target of hatred only because they are ajummas. (I don’t mean that ‘Kim Yeo-sa’ have no problem at all, you should read the related article about Kim Yeo-sa (pink coloured linked one just above)). It was very difficult to keep writing this post about misoajumma or misogyny. Maybe it is still complicated to understand what misogyny is in contemporary society in Korea. At the same time, it is very careful to write about this issue in Korea at this time. So it takes so long to finish this post and I will write more about this later for sure.