Michelle Borok's Posts

Last month South Korea elected its first female president. Seems progressive enough, but Park Geun-hye is a fiercely conservative daughter of a dictatorial former president. It was a passionate race to the finish, and her two liberal opponents at one point were going to band together to take her down, but they couldn’t agree on who should step down.

Like Japan, the Korean people chose a conservative candidate to guide them through these recent troubled economic times, convinced they are the key to recovery. Unlike Japan, South Korean voters came out in droves on election day.

Now South Koreans are lining up outside Park’s “Center for Proposals for the People’s Happiness”. As she transitions into power, downsizing government, chopping budgets, and hiring and firing, she has established this center (open until February 8th) to hear what the people want. Citizens are lining up (and camping out) to get their submissions in. Five officials will review the suggestions as they come in, and present the cream of the crop to the transition committee. It’s promised that some of the ideas presented will be put into action.

Maybe someone will step up and request a South Korean Death Star, so the Republic can gain some street cred in the space race. That would make North Korea SO mad.

So far the suggestions have been echoes of the requests made during the election, and campaign promises made by Park to make life better for the poor, the elderly and small businesses. There have also been less lofty requests to do things like shake her hand. There was also a request to make sex offenders wear giant, identifying barcodes at all times. Maybe a QR code would be more useful, and just imagine the fabric pattern possibilities!

Google is a household name around the globe – at least in households with regular internet access. It’s even a verb in foreign languages. Now, Google Chairman, Eric Schmidt is in North Korea to… well, no one really knows. Maybe he’s there to get the Google Maps car better access to the driveway of this “Covert Runway“.  He might be there to try the North Korean style nang-myun he’s heard so much about from his Bay Area foodie friends, but a few days into his visit and it’s still a mystery.

The “official” story is that he’s accompanying former New Mexico governor, Bill Richardson, on a humanitarian mission to negotiate the release of a Korean American hostage. CEOs are the new influential world leaders, so I suppose it’s possible, but somehow I think Schmidt lacks that Clinton charm that helped to free Laura Ling and Euna Lee.

Some believe that Schmidt is there to urge Kim Jong Un to ease restrictions on internet and data access. Others believe there’s a different agenda. North Korea is a new frontier when it comes to Google style information sharing. Schmidt will likely learn at least a tiny bit about the future of digital media in the new regime, and he may be looking for a foothold. Five years of Google in communist China didn’t pan out quite the way everyone had hoped though. How will North Korea handle the world’s largest search engine? Will Google+ and its Google Hangouts help re-unite the peninsula? All I know is that if any of the Kim boys want to add me to their circles, I’m SO adding them back.

Hat tip to hustler of culture for this news from Harajuku. Leave it to the Japanese to make 3D printing so tidy and kawaii. These portraits are much less creepy than the fetal ultrasound version. Or are they…

The 3D portraits are the creation of Omote 3D, as reported by Spoon & Tamago. Lucky, well-prepared visitors to the luxury shopping mecca, GYRE will be able to purchase 3D portraits in 3 different sizes, perfect for elaborate train sets, wedding cake toppers, or just general self-representation. Go shopping on Cat Street for a nice new outfit, get your 3D portrait taken, and end up with a pocket-sized you that you can do all kinds of weird things with for Instagram photos.

Reservations are booked solid at their pop-up shop, according to their website, but there may be future opportunities for a portrait session for a figure.

In the meantime, you can always try to commission a figure from Dehara Yukinori, or you can try to make your own portrait at home on your very own 3D printer. Or do it Giant Robot style and have a Sculpey Kids kind of day. Creating things is good no matter how it’s done.

Happy New Year from Mongolia! We’re a half an hour or so from 2013 here. In front of the Darkhan Children’s Theatre there’s been an all night fireworks show – fireworks being a welcome import from neighboring China. Today has been a lot of visits from family with gifts and good tidings for Christmas and New Years (squished together here for secular efficiency) and to check out the newest member of the Mongolian family.

2012 brought me back to Mongolia, but this time for good. It led me to say goodbye (for now) to a much loved Giant Robot family and friends in Los Angeles. It brought me a husband and an army of amazing in-laws who have embraced me and my American family. And the last gift of 2012 was the arrival of a tiny human. All in all, it’s been a jam-packed good year.

I don’t have any resolutions for 2013. Well, maybe one… I resolve to keep doing what I’ve been doing, since it seems to be paying off.

Mongolians love ABBA’s one and only ” holiday” song, second only to Boney M and Wham’s Christmas tunes. I’ve heard this ABBA song everyday since December 1st, so I’ll send 2012 off into the ether with it…

When I moved to Mongolia, I quickly got a job as an English teacher at a small private school in Darkhan. A new friend, who was also a teacher helped me get the job, and connected me to other teaching opportunities to supplement my teacher’s salary. I’m taking a break from full-time teaching for the time being, but I still have some private students, and when my friend presented me with an invitation for a visit with her 10th grade English class, I couldn’t refuse.

It’s that time of year when kids already have one foot out the classroom door. They’re ready for the holidays and looking forward to a short break from their studies. In Mongolia, the holiday hype is all about New Year’s Eve, with Christmas (minus the Baby Jesus) lumped in. Mongolia may be a primarily Buddhist country, but the commercial nature of the holidays has translated well here. Christmas carols are blaring at the department stores, and cellphone ringtones have been changed to reflect the season. Lots of ABBA’s “Happy New Year” and Wham’s “Last Christmas” is going around.  Keeping this in mind, the topic of the class visit needed to be lighter fare.

The class wanted to know about me. They wanted to know where I came from and what I did when I was there. I came up with a lesson plan that included back issues of Giant Robot, a vocabulary worksheet about Christmas in the US, and most importantly, the Big Boss Robot  and the Uglydoll Icebat snowflake template!

Eric and Martin have spoken at countless academic institutions over the years, so I’d like to think I was continuing a GR tradition, but once the templates and the scissors came out, the educational value of my lesson plan dissolved into a full on crafting session.  Giant Robot is as much about creativity as it has been about documenting and sharing culture, so in the end, it all worked out pretty perfectly.

Everyone got in on the action, sharing three pairs of scissors their teacher had rounded up from neighboring classrooms. I had brought enough templates to practice with though, and enough for everyone to get a chance at creating both characters. I also encouraged the class to create their own designs based on the same principle as the template Eric created. Some students started experimenting when their templates were finished.

Spreading holiday cheer and creativity Giant Robot style! From chilly, snowy Darkhan, wishing all of you a happy, healthy and creative holiday – however you spend it! Just make sure it includes friends, imagination and sharing. It’s better that way.

On the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar, framed by never ending new construction of luxury housing, and upscale office and retail developments, sits a park that will have to wait until winter’s end to continue its own development. The National Garden Park is part of a new vision for Mongolia’s capital. It has echoes of public green space in South Korea, and the new construction surrounding it is modeled after foreign high rise developments. All in all, a vast departure from the Soviet architecture and urban planning the city was built on, and world’s away from the impoverished “ger district” on the North, East and Western fringes of the city. Mongolia is on a fast track to becoming an Asian Tiger, but its most symbolic native predator will always be the wolf.

Tiger Beer’s international art project, Tiger Translate returned to Mongolia and reunited with New York based artists, FAILE for the creation and installation of The Wolf Within. They worked with Mongolian artist, Batmunkh to create the permanent sculpture, and with the help of the Mongolia Arts Council, they also had a chance to collaborate on stencil pieces around the city.

FAILE and GR friend and sculptor, Charlie Becker, tell us more about the evolution of the project from stencil, to sculpture, to 5 meter high fiberglass re-imagining.

GR: Can you say a few words about the collaborative process and taking concepts from 2 dimensions to 3?
F: We’ve worked collaboratively all our career so it’s very natural for us to have the help from another artist in the process of realizing one of our ideas. Charlie has been our go-to-guy to help us in the process of bringing our images to life. It’s usually a time consuming process. One of the biggest challenges comes in getting the emotion right, to capture that usually involves several revisions before getting it right but it always leads to amazing results in the 2D to 3D transformation.

CB: Coming from a background as a designer, It’s second nature for me to work in collaboration. When I work as a for-hire sculptor, my role is to capture the artists’ intent, not to push my own vision. But Patrick and Patrick really understand and trust me to interpret what they are looking for.

The challenge in bringing FAILE’s pieces to life is that they can combine things from different 2D sources  that can’t exist together in the real world. Getting the scale and anatomy of a horse’s head to merge convincingly into the neck of a human, for example. Or a relief that’s so deep that you can see all around it, requiring distortion to make the perspective look right from all angles.

The Independent reports some changes in China. Starting in 2013, travelers from 45 countries will be able to visit the nation’s capital for 3 days without a visa, including US visitors.  The lucky countries were selected based on visitor counts between 2009 and 2011. There are still some pretty strict rules regarding the visit. It only applies to people passing through Beijing, you don’t get to leave the city limits, if you’re traveling with pets they have to stay in sketchy quarantine, and you still need to register with the police.

The change is an effort to boost tourism and encourage folks to opt for a layover and spend some yuan.

It may also lead to less public sleeping in the airport. The traveler that’s resourceful enough to find a safe, quiet place for a nap is not always the same traveler who will drop dollars at Duty Free.

Great photos by Reed Young of retired sumo wrestlers living in Japan. Words by Nanako Yamamori.

http://reedyoung.com/retired-sumo-wrestlers/

I’ve always suspected that the reason why the iPhone gets outsold in Asia is its inability to allow the user to decorate it with cell phone charms. I’m pretty sure I’m right. Cell phone charms are BIG business. A Tokyo 3D printing company has joined the decades long trend for a niche market – pregnant ladies.

Their primary product is a personalized 3D printed model of your  baby in utero. You can go old school and get a 2D grainy, black and white scan of your spawn and try to guess which body part is which. You can even upgrade to a 4D ulstrasound and get clearer images and video of your lumpy baby, OR for $1,200 you can go all the way and get this resin model based on your 4D ultrasound, that is shaped like your pregnant gut. It’s great for carrying in your purse to show off to friends and family, and also doubles as a paperweight! And don’t forget about your cell phone – the company throws in a free miniature cell phone charm version so you can show everyone what your not-yet-born baby looks like without having to carry your resin model around with you all the time.

The company is diversifying their product line. In addition to the resin models, and the bonus cell charms, they will also be offering 3D models of just the mushy face of your baby. Baby faces sort of fall into all-rook-same status at this point in fetal development, but I imagine there’s a growing market for this, and not just in tech-wacky Japan.

A team of researchers from Barcelona, building on the findings of Mongolian and French teams several years ago, have discovered hard evidence of the original hapas. In the Altai Mountains of Mongolia, more than 2,000 years ago, East met West and produced some really good looking people.

The key to this discovery is not that the Caucasians of Europe headed East looking for Asian girlfriends, but that the people of Central Asia were a dominant force expanding their territories into Western lands.

This is a timely discovery for the day after the newly decided set date for  Chinggis Khan’s birthday this year, although the genetic mix was happening even before his time.

The people who live in Mongolia’s Altai Mountains today are mostly Kazakh Mongols, like the handsome eagle hunter pictured above. They’re a unique blend of Turkic, Mongol and Russian cultures and genes. They have faced challenges creating their modern identity in Mongolia, but they are absolutely a part of what makes this part of the world so fascinating.

Yesterday, over 600,000 Korean seniors strapped themselves in for day long testing. It’s over nine hours long and known as Suneung, the College Scholastic Ability Test. For these kids and their parents, this is one of the most important days of their entire lives. Some will get suitable scores their first time around. Others will take the test multiple times (it’s offered once a year), repeating the stress and expense of preparation over and over until their scores are high enough to get them into a “decent” national university.

The Korean educational system is an intense one. Everything builds up to Suneung, when the die are cast. Will your life be worth living? Is your future bright? Will you be doomed to live a life of blue collar mediocrity, or will you rise to corporate greatness? These are questions that are asked in Junior High, and prepared for in grade school with extra-curriculars and tutoring that make a kid’s work day about as long (sometimes longer) as that of their parents.

On Suneung, parents, younger students and empathetic citizens rally in support of the students taking the test. Juniors, second year students who are soon to face the same fate, line up outside the testing centers before dawn to get a good spot to yell rallying cheers, and offer snacks and juice to the students heading in for the test. Parents pray outside the testing centers. They pray in Christian churches and at Buddhist temples. In Jeju, the airport avoids takeoffs and landings during the listening portion of the test.

I’m not sure if today is any easier for the kids that tested yesterday. I want to believe they slept well last night, with the hurdle of Suneung completed, but it’s not over yet.  Their test results will be released in December. The admissions process continues for those with scores they can live with. For everyone else… it’ll be ok. Relax, and try to take it easy while you get ready for November 2013. Don’t do anything crazy, and don’t let your parents get you down. You can do it!

FIGHTING!

Big no no for Nongshim, South Korea’s ramen giant. Their instant ramen produced in factories in China, and distributed through a massive – nearly global – network is under a recall for their products containing dangerous levels of benzopyrene, a carcinogen also found in coal tar and cigarettes. The benzopyrene is in the soup flavor packets included in bowl and packet ramen, maybe to give it that carbon-rific, smokey flavor…

There’s a massive recall being called for all across Asia, but it’s moving very slowly. There are 6 products that have been identified as containing “dangerous” levels of benzopyrene, including some of the most popular products from the brand. The FDA in Manila are trying to clear shelves of the toxic ramen. In Mongolia there are nightly news reports about the ramen and published lists of the particular products targeted for the recall. Vietnamese retailers are pulling Nongshim products from their shelves with the support of local product safety authorities, who are also on the look out for suspicious bras from China with possibly toxic liquid fillings. Hmmm…

The Korean Food and Drug Administration, as well as Nongshim are trying to respond to the backlash stating that the amounts of benzopyrene in the soup are minimal. My instincts tell me that if a Chinese watchdog group found the toxic ingredient, we should all probably pay attention. If there’s enough carcinogen present to raise a red flag for them, well… it’s time to toss the spicy ramen.

What a bummer for South Korean pop stars who promote the popular instant food. Nongshim’s newest spokesperson is the worldwide sensation, PSY. He just joined the Nongshim family to help promote their newer “Black Cup” Shin Ramyun. Good thing for PSY, he can afford to skip the instant ramen and get the good stuff in Gangnam-gu.

Road trips in Mongolia don’t include truck stops with amazing pinball machines, billboards, or re-fueling on junk food, and sometimes they don’t even include asphalt.

You may not have to slow down for traffic jams, but big herds of livestock – goats, sheep, horses, cows, and yaks – will undoubtedly get in your way over the course of your journey. A honk or two of your horn will usually get them scampering so you can keep rolling on.

Last week, my husband and I went on a trip up to Khuvsgul Lake. It’s Mongolia’s biggest freshwater lake, and the second largest in Asia. According to Wikipedia it’s 2 million years old. In all that time it’s avoided the worst of the devastating plunder of industry, development and pollution and remains pristine. It’s one of the jewels of Mongolia, a must see if you venture all the way out here to see the beauty of this country and its diverse wildlife. Of course, it’s at its finest in the summer time. The in-law’s family photo albums all have photos from family trips to Khuvsgul with endless green mountainsides and fields of neon-bright wildflowers. Of course, we stay-cationed this summer and went to Khuvsgul after the first few snowfalls of impending winter had hit.

Fall in Mongolia means all the green is gone, and while the trees go all technicolor with the change in season, the winds drop those leaves quickly. In and around Darkhan, the wheat fields have been harvested, the tall grasses around gers have been collected for winter fodder, and if the summer’s been good (and this one was) the animals have a healthy amount of chub to keep them warm as their winter coats grow in. All across Mongolia this time of year, nomadic families are wrapping up their moves to winter camps, stocking up on supplies, and moving big herds to more palatable grazing areas. Summer gers, with thinner walls will be replaced with heavier winter felt, and central stoves are being brought back inside to provide cozy heat. Construction crews across the country are in a hurry to finish jobs they started, or resumed in spring. It’s a race against winter to get cement poured before it starts freezing.

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Here’s the latest on the stolen dinosaur bones which were auctioned off for a million bucks in May. The NY Daily News reviews the latest in the ongoing saga (interspersed with random “fossil” news).

In short, the guy who obtained the fossils to build the skeleton that went to auction, has been spending his summer crabbing about the Supreme Court decision to return the fossils to the Mongolian government. A small army of paleontologists checked it out thoroughly and decided that there was no way possible that the fossils had come from anywhere BUT Mongolia, and it’s been illegal to remove them from the country without permission for the last 90 or so years.

A paper trail was followed, and it led back to Prokopi who was sticking with a story that the fossils were legally obtained and he was just a guy who loved to put dinosaur skeletons together to feed his family. He felt like the Mongolian and US governments were being total jerks for trying to get to the bottom of things to get this pretty miraculous assemblage where it was supposed to be.

Well, surprise. He was lying.

He’s now been arrested and criminal charges for smuggling lots and lots of illegally obtained fossils have been filed. Photos of him actually digging stuff up out of the ground in Mongolia have come to light. His company website has an “about us” page, telling the story of how he and his wife built up the business of taking the rare treasures of other parts of the world, decorating Florida McMansions with their spoils and turning it into a profitable family business. He definitely thought he had the system figured out.

I’d be less annoyed with this guy if he hadn’t been so adamant about getting the bones back and even trying to take legal action against the decision to return the skeleton to its rightful home. Now that he’s been nabbed he’s threatening that the black market for stolen fossils and artifacts will now be driven even deeper underground. No pun intended.

One less iconic image for tourists to take pictures of when they visit Ulaanbaatar, with this statue removal. The reports say that this is the last Lenin statue in the city, but it’s certainly not the last one standing in Mongolia.

Darkhan, north of Ulaanbaatar, has a few Lenins here and there, and a gallery in the Darkhan Museum is replete with  original paintings by Mongolian artists illustrating an imaginary visit to confer with Mongol leaders. Darkhan is closer to the Russian border, and Russian coverage of the removal of the last Lenin in UB isn’t terribly cheerful. I think our Lenins will be sticking around for a while.

Video of the removal of the statue is included in the BBC coverage of the story. Throwing of shoes is a pretty serious insult in Mongolia. Just letting the soles of shoes on your feet touch someone else, can spark a brawl without a prompt apology, so chucking old shoes at the downed Lenin was a strong sentiment of disapproval. The Soviet Union saved Mongolia from being consumed by China, and for decades it was one of the only nations to recognize Mongolia’s sovereignty, but it came at a terrible price. The Cyrillic alphabet, and the wreckage of monasteries and temples all across the country are two prominent reminders of seventy years of a complicated live-in relationship.

Lenin is going up for auction — legally, not like stolen dinosaur bones.  Starting bid is under $300, a good price for the budget-conscious bourgeois historical artifact collector.

It wouldn’t be October without Julianna Parr’s annual Gothtober project, the best online Halloween advent calendar out there. We’re almost half-way through! Day 1 with Bob Baker’s Marionettes is a special kick off.

Most people rank Halloween at the top of their “favorite holiday” list, and it’s not even one you get a present for! Is it the chance to dress up as a slutty ear of corn? Or maybe you prefer to humiliate– I mean, dress up your dog as Yoda. Your children are also fair game. Why let them choose their costume when you can act out your fantasies and dress them up as Frida Kahlo? You can explain who she is when your daughter might care in about 15 years. Halloween is the holiday you never have to outgrow, and it’s a great dry-run for your next San Diego Comic Con Masquerade.

You too can be a part of Gothtober 2013 – well, not yet, but you can start planning ahead. Julianna Parr, lovingly known to her pals as JP, is a creativity curator. Gothtober is a collection of projects ranging from film, craft, cooking, music and animation. JP brings out the best in people who like to make things fun. She’s had weekly practice for over a decade in Silverlake, at Akbar’s weekly Craftnight, where she mentors attendees through accessible projects with a special theme as the venerable Craft Captain .

If you’re not in the Halloween spirit yet (or you just can’t decide what you’re wearing to those parties you’ve been invited to) check out Gothtober.com, or drop in on Craftnight and get inspired. And… it’s okay if you want to dress up as slutty food, or if you want to be a Furry for a day/night. No one’s gonna judge you until November 1st.

Operation Babylift, at the end of the Vietnam war, was looked at as a humanitarian mission, but it was problematic. There was a plane crash that killed 138 children and adults, there were thousands of families split apart, and at the time there was very little for the children who were relocated to prepare them for their new lives in foreign lands and cultures. Not so different from the complications of international adoptions today.

In the years following the relocation of thousands of Vietnamese children, ranging in ages from newborn to teen, lots was written and documented about the children who were taken from their home/land and expected to fare better in the hands of foreign agencies and adoptive families. There are volumes written by the children of the airlift and academics looking at the fallout, and the success stories, of such an extreme transition.

The latest story comes from Al Jazeera correspondent, Cath Turner who was relocated to a white Australian family. For an episode of Al Jazeera Correspondent, she told her story in “So Close, So Far Away“.

It’s compelling story of discovery, identity, and family. Highly recommended. The Operation Babylift diaspora has a lot of stories that are worth knowing. There are some happy endings out there, but not without struggle. They are stories which should never be forgotten as the world gets smaller, and small people are taken across borders everyday with no idea what lies on the other side.

I don’t get why graduate students are so high strung. I mean, you get to do what you want, write/research stuff you care about, and go to/throw dinner parties with wine and conversation with smart people like you. Right? Totally chill.

Not so much at the chemistry lab at the University of New South Wales. This week two Chinese chemistry students at the university got into a fight in the lab and things got nasty. Things escalated and one guy got sulfuric acid thrown in his face AND took a hammer to his head. He’s in critical condition now, in a medically induced coma, while police are trying to figure out what the deal is with his attacker. The media is reporting the aggressor is likely to be “mentally ill”.

The story sadly reminds me of the true tale of Gang Lu, another Chinese graduate student who lost it and lashed out. They made an award winning movie about his rise and fall in Iowa, Dark Matter. Now that I think of it, those Chinese graduate students didn’t have too many dinner parties – more like hot pot on a hot plate.  Sad news in New South Wales though. Hoping that the student who was attacked recovers, and that the student who did the attacking gets sorted out.

Here’s some of the latest work from 2009′s Papershapers artist, Richard Sweeney. Breathtaking.

I can only imagine how beautiful these are in person. Life-sized, meticulously crafted, and set in a venue of big stone pillars and stained glass — gorgeous. No doubt they stole the show, which was inspired by the London Olympics. There are more photos of his piece in this story, and be sure to check out Sweeney’s website to see what he’s been up to since we saw him in Culver City. Flashback to Eric’s reflections of what was a fantastically diverse show that got people excited, involved and crafting all night long!

It’s a good feeling to come across stories like these about the talented people that Giant Robot has had the privilege to work with over the years. (Plus, I really love pretty ponies.)

The only reason why this celebrity baby is “news” is because it’s a living tribute to the work of Giant Robot friend and inspiration J.Otto Seibold. Olive, the Other Reindeer is one of his brilliantly illustrated creations and a “new” holiday classic. His work graces the pages of over a dozen wonderful books – pure J.Otto creations and perfect collaborations with other authors. Barrymore got lucky and had a chance to voice his character, so it’s only fair she name her first born after it in exchange.  I just want to see more press about Olive’s *real* creator!

We last saw J.Otto at GR2 for Jottobots, an art show and debut of yet another collaboration, a great looking video game created with Kyle Pulver. It was a fun night, and great to have his work on the gallery walls, painted and digitized.

J.Otto is always busy creating, community building and collaborating. Bay Area folks can find him at art and book fairs around the neighborhood, and you can keep up with his latest work and appearances by being his friend on Facebook. He’s been rocking an excellent series of sloths lately, sloths not yet ousted by tapirs from the “animals popular with artists” just yet.