::A Geek in Korea::

Transcript of the video:
Man at piano: "Pretty girls like pomegranate. What will I do if a pretty girl gets more beautiful? When I look at myself in the mirror, I feel happy. Pretty girls…"
Girl: "Ah, pretty!"
Man at piano: "Pretty girls like pomegranate." (Three times.)

You have no idea the amount of annoyance this man has caused me. The man singing at the piano happens to be the newest androgynous pretty man (ko-mi-nam) star, Lee Jun-gi. Seeing as I don’t follow Korean popular culture much, I had no idea why this man was famous.

It turns out he was one of the stars of the massively popular movie Wang-ui namja (Literally: King’s man) retitled for western cultures as  "A King and the Clown." This movie is the Korean film industry’s Titanic, with sales equilvalent to nearly 25% of the population going to see this movie. It’s a historical drama about a somewhat  king that grows to love two beautiful clowns that help him expose corruption in his government. I haven’t seen it yet, as it’s not on DVD at the moment, but my wife’s told me the basic story.  It’s smashed all sorts of box office records, and has propelled the unknown cast into stardom.

Seeing Lee Jun-gi on my television screen is a result of this phenomenon. The problem is, he’s a terrible singer. Second, the singing, no matter how terrible, gets stuck in my head whenever I see him on television (constantly), hear someone else sing the song (my students, also constantly), or see the new pomegranate juice he is crooning for on sale (every day at work or in any store), or advertised (anywhere you go).  The song is also simple, the downside of this being that it gets stuck in my head even worse.

I’ve been singing this song to myself for the past few weeks and I need it to end. It’s like a curse. Last Friday, when I tried to buy an orange juice at the vending machine, the machine gave me a pomegranate juice instead. I cursed, sang the song a few dozen more times, and sucked down the sweet liquid bitterly.

Damn you Lee Jun-gi!