Warning: Objects On Screen May Be Less Relevant Than They Appear
If you are awake past 2 AM in America and have the television on, it is guaranteed that you will find at least one interesting program on, no matter what your tastes. If you have cable, you will stumble upon old sports games being rebroadcast or Howard Stern’s radio show on television or an infomercial selling something made entirely of plastic that will break after the first use, but will revolutionize the way you cook (insert typical dinner food) for that one time the device worked. If you do not have cable, you will probably be watching the news.
What I am about to say is in no way influenced by the fact that I speak no Korean whatsoever: Watching grass grow in winter is slightly more interesting than watching Korean basic television after midnight. I have 10 channels during the day. After midnight or so, the number of channels available for viewing drops to five or six. Some channels, I suppose, assume that everyone in Korea is either asleep by midnight or working. It is also quite possible that Korean children could be up past midnight studying English. Either way, there is nothing even resembling a television program available in the wee hours. I have spent a couple of nights researching this topic. Here are my provisional findings in a traditional TV guide format for post-midnight television.
Channel 2: A group of people are on a stage in an empty studio, only one of whom is singing. Everyone else is either dancing or just standing there, staring off into space. I thought for a while that they were filming a group of friends in a room at a Norebang (an establishment that rents out sound-proof rooms for groups to sing kareoke in a private setting), but none of the people on stage looked like they knew each other. Then I thought that this might be a clip from some American-Bandstand-type show because I was convinced, after 15 minutes of watching this one guy sing, that it must be a clip from 1983. The singer wore a zebra-striped shirt and possibly a velvet blazer. One guy behind him, the only guy who never stopped dancing, had a huge mound of hair slicked back like a 40-year-old mobster. The dancing guy kept stepping back and forth while clapping his hands high in the air. The singer was awful, intentionall crooning along with some Korean ballad. The first night I thought this was a fluke, it was so bad, but then the same program came on the next night, but with different people.
Channel 3: This is an education channel. Notice I say “education” and notn “educationAL,” like the Discovery Channel. A coworker said it’s a channel for kids that are home-schooled, so their parents don’t have to pretend to know everything. That idea would make sense, but I don’t buy it. It seems much more plausible that parents make their children watch this channel during weekdays, if any tv at all. Children go to regular school, then English school, then do homework, then study, then watch a television program about English or physics. There are a lot of English lessons on channel 3, all of which are more complex than the material I teach.
Channel 4: This is a math channel. I just read an article in the Korean Herald (an English newspaper here) saying that a new test of 4th and 8th graders found that Asian students stomped all over Western students in science and math scores. Channel 4 is probably the reason why. Channel 4 probably employs on two people who work 12-hour shifts, doing nothing but math problems that well beyond my comprehension. Something interesting to note here: Korean algebra uses X and Y and Z for variables, like we do in the West. I assumed Eastern languages would use their own characters for variables. They deserve to, seeing as they’re always better at math than us.
Channel 5: Does not exist. This is the first of several post-midnight blackout channels. I have no idea when they return to regularly-scheduled programming, but there are many hours of a rainbow-striped screen with the incessant ”beeeeep” noise.
Channel 6: Their call letters are “EBS.” I’ve deemed this to stand for “English Broadcasting System,” though the language is nowhere to be found. But the programming most remembles those that I might find in the states. Channel 6 airs sitcoms and dramas during primetime hours and informercials at night. The only difference here is that infomercials have no corny actors. It’s more of a QVC-type informercial where someone is standing behind a desk or counter trying to sell you something you don’t need and that can be paid for in 10 installments. The other night, I watched a 15-minute infomerical for glass Tupperware. I know it was Tupperware because the screen actually said “Tupperware” in English. But the actual products for sale were made of glass. There was also a five-minute portion without words. They aired a sort of video montage to this glass Tupperware stuff, full of clips with a hand pulling gross-looking food of a container and popping it straight into the microwave. It did nothing for my appetite, but made me want to invest in a microwave.
Channel 7: Another blackout channel, but without the colors or beeping. It is simply a blank screen. Seems more cost-efficient than Channel 5, who still wants to be heard and noticed even without anything to watch.
Channel 8: I’m not sure what to make of this channel. Sometimes it’s snowy and sometimes there’s techno music playing and sometimes people are trying to sell you stuff. I suppose it sums up Korean television.
Channel 9: This is my favorite shopping channel because all they sell are winter coats. They don’t even bother selling other items of clothing. Only big, furry coats being worn by models who look like they hate their jobs. What’s most bizarre, though, is the up-tempo “Jingle Bells” tune playing as models strut down the runway. This could just be because I’ve been teaching my students “Jingle Bells” for the past week in preparation for some sort of Christmas carol relay at school. They’ve finally managed to correctly pronounce “sleigh.”
Channel 10: It’s the only channel that shows an actual television program on at 3am, so I have no clue what it is. I once watched a dating show where the sound effects crew went insane when the woman gave the man a kiss on the cheek. All sorts of crazy images and sounds flooded my senses.
Channel 11: This is where I watched a woman pull tomato-sauce-soaked squid from a Tupperware container, place it in a glass container, put it in the microwave, and then eat it, thanks to some video editing. Nobody on screen ever spoke a word, so I have no clue what they’re selling. I’ve narrowed it down to the microwave and the Tupperware-like container. This is an educated guess based on the sound effects coming from the television when each item was pictured. But, like most other things, I have no clue.
