Je T'aime

You know how in the U.S., we kind of have a love-hate relationship with France? I mean, there's that diet book about how French women are so thin. And Paris is like, the center of the fashion world for people who pay attention to that sort of thing. And everyone is all like "Ooo - Par-eee! How ro-MAN-tic!"

But on the other hand there's the whole French-people-are-snobs movement, and jokes about Freedom Fries and stuff like that.

Well, I've decided that South Korea is China's France.

Here, it's cool to be able to say a few choice phrases in Korean, especially "I love you". The most fashionable clothing and hair styles come not from Europe or the U.S. but from Korea. Hair styles like this one:

Hot.

Korean music is all the rage here too, and if you can sing any Korean songs at karaoke, you are cheered wildly as a superstar.

On the other hand, the Chinese are also mildly annoyed with the Koreans, their primary offense, as far as I can tell, being their off-the-charts coolness.

"They look down on us," is a common complaint. Koreans are widely accepted as being drama queens who love to be in the spotlight. To put it another way, Koreans are the punks who live down the street and ride a motorcycle all over town, while the Chinese are the dorky kids whose parents make them stay home and study all the time. On the one hand, the Chinese get the self-satisfaction of being teacher's pet, but they also secretly want to be noticed and liked by the cool kids.

On the hair front, at least, they get an E for Effort.