The Adam Walsh World

Mag Cover for April

2011-04-06T17:17:00.001-07:00

So this is the Groove Korea cover for April. Click HERE for the link.

Danny Voicer

2011-04-06T17:08:00.000-07:00

Here's a voicer I did on a rift between former premier Danny Willams (pick below) and his former political party. Click HERE.

It was at a book signing for the following:

Danny plus the authors were there.

Eat Your Kimchi

2011-03-06T16:36:00.000-08:00

So, I did a blog profile for Groove's March issue. It's below. I really like this blog btw. I'll have the March issue pic up soon, it's great! Summer Walker headed our music issue again, she's brilliant and so is the mag.

"Korea + Videos = Shazam."

Meet Martina and Simon.

They’re the creators of the video blog Eat Your Kimchi and they’re kind of a big deal. So big in fact they have over 64,000 followers in the social media sphere: YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Podcasts.

When asked to describe their blog they say simply, "Korea + Videos = Shazam." And upon closer examination they couldn’t have hit that nail any squarer on the head. Eat Your Kimchi is a visual feast that grabs the viewers attention and doesn’t let go.

How did it get started? Well, first of all Martina and Simon had to meet.

In their words: “We met at the University of Toronto in a Romantic Poetry and Prose class (yeah…we know…cheesy). We started dating after being friends for almost a year, we were engaged one year later, and married 15 months afterwards. We've been married for almost 4 years now, but it really feels like we're still dating (Martina and Simon make google eyes at each other…Groove magazine editor pukes.)”

The whole Korea adventure came about because Simon had worked part time in a hagwon in Toronto and developed a fascination with Korea. Martina, meanwhile, had always had an obsession with Asian culture that dated back to when she was a child. Though they were both high school teachers, in May 2008, they decided to try the ROK for a year – it’s now been almost three.

Once situated in Korea, the dynamic duo thought that a blog would help family keep in touch. They thought it would also let their friends know, “that North Korea hasn't inundated us in the ocean of fire as they promised a few days before we got on the plane. The news in North America really makes North Korea look like a huge threat to everyday life in South Korea. “

As for why they went with video, Martina and Simon say that when they started blogging they would, “write elaborate posts, take nice pictures, and film really long and boring videos.”

When they phoned home and discussed the blog their family members said, "Oh, we didn't read it. We just clicked on the video." It was at that point when they focused their efforts on video.

In their eyes, “videos are the most sharable medium and most easily digestible, even if it is the most labor intensive.”

“A couple of months into it and we started seeing strangers respond to our videos, which we thought was amazing. The response has just continued growing ever since,” they said.

And did the response ever grow.

“The feedback from people has been astonishing. We're stopped in the streets by random people who want to shake our hands and thank us for our videos, and it always blows us away. People draw fan pictures of us and make gifs of us. We never thought anything like that would happen, and we're constantly overwhelmed and amazed by it all.”

But with the ups come some downs and though the couple appreciates the good side of Netizens in one of the most wired countries in the world, there’s also the bad side.

“The fans only want to hear positive things, so every so often fans will swarm our site and leave hate comments. About a year ago we did a video about how much we dislike the election music trucks, and the response was so negative that we had to take down the video due to anonymous people calling Martina's school and harassing her. Interestingly, Martina wasn't even in that video!”

Martina and Simon do say, however, that they focus on the good fans and that it’s because of them that they keep at it.

As for what they want to spread with their videos:

“We want to show people from around the world what a little slice of everyday life is like in Korea, rather than just the touristy places. We try to cover a little bit of everything, whether it be playing Korean hand games, making impromptu convenience store cocktails, or by reviewing the omnipresent K-pop world.”

To get a taste of the slice, click HERE.

RCMP Annual Klondike Night 2011

2011-03-06T15:05:00.000-08:00

I covered Klondike night over the weekend. Report is attached HERE.

Seahawks Lose

2011-03-06T13:03:00.000-08:00

I was sent to the 3rd place game of the 2011 Subway AUS WOmen's Basketball Championships. The Seahawks lost to St. FX 56-35. The pic above is by Colin Squires and says it all.

Grimes' Roast

2011-03-06T12:56:00.000-08:00

So I was sent to the political Roast of former Premier and Provincial Liberal Leader Roger Grimes the other week. The audio report is linked HERE.

Me on the radio

2011-02-16T12:54:00.000-08:00

The wonders of technology have made it possible to put my voice on my blog. Here's a brief report on bad walking conditions in St. John's from last week. The photo attached is an example of what the downtown area looks like after it snows. We've had more than 175cm of snow since January13th.

Cool site

2011-02-15T13:00:00.000-08:00

A great site for reading tips on broadcast news. It's by Merve Block. Below is his bio from his site.

Mervin Block is a broadcast writing coach and author. He has written news at three television networks: as a staff writer for the "CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite" and the "ABC Evening News with Frank Reynolds" and as a freelance at NBC News.
He has written news for Ed Bradley, Tom Brokaw, Walter Cronkite, Douglas Edwards, Charles Kuralt, Roger Mudd, Edwin Newman, Charles Osgood, Dan Rather, Harry Reasoner, Frank Reynolds, Diane Sawyer, Bob Schieffer, Robert Trout and Mike Wallace.
Block teaches newswriting workshops at TV and radio newsrooms around the country.

PDF for North Korea Issue of Groove

2011-02-07T09:11:00.000-08:00

Here's the link to the amazing North Korea issue of Groove Korea. The PDF is there and the mag is awesome this month. Click through the PDF, it is worth your while.

Telegram Article Number Two

2011-02-06T06:28:00.001-08:00

I just got my second article published in the Telegram. I'm very contented with it because I got the whole main page in the Life and Leisure section. Wouldn't have happened without Colin Squires' picture taking ability. Currently mulling over a few ideas for new stories.

The article was titled "A taste for change." It's a look at how the palates of Newfoundlanders have expanded over the past 20 years. I used the Korean restaurant J as an example of this.

The pic below is one Colin took of Julia making us poktangju -- beer and soju (also called somek).

Podcasts

2011-02-03T16:28:00.000-08:00

I cannot overstate how much I love podcasts. They entertain, inform, inspire and make my life more enjoyable. Below are a few sites that haves podcasts I like. A number of them are from npr. That's because npr is great. Anyways, have a look and enjoy :)

This American Life

CBC Radio 3

The Bugle

Filmspotting

Wait Wait Don't Tell me...

Fresh Air

On the Media

Groove Korea Cover February

2011-02-01T16:51:00.000-08:00

Here is our actual cover for the month of February. As a little update, I am staying with the mag for input and editing.

Groove Korea Cover

2011-02-01T16:23:00.000-08:00

Below is the cover for Groove Korea's North Korea issue "Limited Edition." Matt Lamers headed the project and I assisted. That said the usual team of Tracey, Dan, Josh, Summer and of course the publisher Sean all played their usual critical roles. It was too controversial to print as the real cover. I do, however, I think I will get this one framed.

First Telegram Article

2011-02-01T16:17:00.000-08:00

Here is the link to my first article with the St. John's Telegram. It's about the comedian Brian Aylward.

Older Korea Herald Articles

2010-12-21T05:20:00.000-08:00

Links to three older articles I published in the Korea Herald.

Korean restaurant in St. John's

The editor for the culture desk didn't like the other photos that my friend Colin Squires took because they weren't "Korean enough." She went with the one we would have chosen last, I was unimpressed. Below is one that I really liked -- though they were all good.

Below are two links to HIV/AIDS policy in Korea that I co-wrote with Matt Lamers and then Jurie Hwang.

Confusing HIV rules in Korea

Views differ on HIV testing

So I'm home and bloggin again

2010-12-21T05:14:00.001-08:00

I'm home and blogging again. Below is a letter to Groove Korea for the January edition. Told the guys if it sucks not to print it. It may be a litttle too "poor me."

Letter from ‘home’
By: Adam Walsh

The saying “you can’t go home again” is based on a novel by Thomas Wolfe that was published in 1940, two years after his death. Though there are a few ways to look at it, one meaning is that the home you are going back to is not the one you left.
I just moved home after living in Korea since 2004.
It has been eight days since I landed at the airport in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Door-to-door, it took over 30 hours and the crowd at Tokyo’s Narita airport saying that my duty free was a security threat before I finally made it -- albeit sans my giant bottle of holiday cheer. As per when I arrived on vacations in the past, Mom and Dad were there waiting for me. After quick hugs and baggage retrieval, we were headed “home.”
I had grown so accustomed to Seoul. The shiny hub of sparkle has great public transit, cheap cabs, cheap alcohol and gregarious ajumma at every turn. It also has my friends -- friends, who because of the fact that you all choose to live there, have more in common with you than you may realize. Though my “home” friends are still just that – friends – there’s a difference. This time, I’m not on vacation and there’s no real obligation to visit me right away. When your relationships have centered around social networking sites and a two week visit per year, people slowly change. Their lives evolve. Just as my friends’ lives moved on here, mine did on another continent and I left it to move back. Feeling the stranger in a room full of people you’ve known for years is a peculiar taste of holiday oddity.
Then there’s the fact that shit has had the audacity to move around in my absence. I went to two former liquor stores before finding they had merged into a bigger one on a road I had never been on before, my favorite bookstore turned into a lingerie store for middle aged women – wish I was kidding – and there’s also the fact that I have forgotten where certain places are located. All this makes me ask a million questions about new developments and building whereabouts to my poor sister who seems to think I have turned into an inquisitive toddler – she may not be that far off.
Questions. I have avoided non immediate family and friends’ parties because the questions are all the same. Why did you leave? Why didn’t you leave sooner? Why didn’t you stay longer? What are you going to do now? Will you go back? So it was South Korea right? Think you’re lucky you got out when you did?
Comparing social life to driving – which I hadn’t done since I left either – my first few days back I avoided the highway and chose instead to drive on back roads. I’m doing the same with socializing. Bars with a friend or two are ok but big parties where everyone talks to everyone feel like highways to me at this moment. They’re a little much.
It’s not all bad though. Seeing familiar faces, not having to struggle to be understood at the post office, a fridge full of my parents’ holiday shopping and a warm fireplace in front of a Christmas tree have all aided in my transition phase. No worries, I’ll adapt. It’s just that though things look similar, the beat does indeed go on and I need to learn some new verses.
Happy 2011.

I write like

2010-07-18T19:48:00.001-07:00

I write like
Vladimir Nabokov

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

New Korea Herald article

2009-12-08T01:20:00.000-08:00

Cheong Wa Dae keeps doors shut to foreigners

Click and read the article. The pop-ups below are from the site. The English one, well ... you can read that on your own. As for the Korean one, it says that children and adolescents under the age of 18 and also foreigners are not allowed to go on tours of the Korea's version of the White House. The article could have been better but I couldn't nail down quotes from a couple extra sources in time. Nothing crazy mind you but, it would have simply improved the reading of the article and made it more interesting.

New Korea Herald article

2009-11-19T00:37:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

So here's my latest with the Herald. Been a while but what can you do? It's about a group here on the peninsula that doesn't seem to care too much for foreigners. Below is from their website.

저질 불법 외국인 강사의 뇌 구조도: low quality illegal foreign teacher’s brain structure

1. Money

2. Degree forgery

3. Brain neuron synapses in charge of the fading conscience

4. Inviting loser friends back home to Korea

5. Drugs

6. How many girls can I score today? Who will be my tenth lover?

7. English teaching competence

8. Puttin gdown Korea

9. Sense

10. Only focusing on spreading vulgar propaganda

Blurring line between hate and free speech

Great Procrastination site!

2009-10-19T22:58:00.000-07:00

www.freerice.com

The above site makes you smarter and helps you feed the poor!

Bad Person!

2009-10-19T22:53:00.000-07:00

Where have I been? No posts? It truly is awful of me I know. Changes of habit for a creature such as myself really affects me. I went to Canada, had a great time, got delayed waiting for a visa in Vancouver, came back to the ROK and got sick. Nothing too serious mind you, but enough to delay and delay and delay. But I'm writing (also editing a bunch), back in boxing and trying to find a proper routine for everything.

2nd article with The Korea Herald

2009-08-11T01:35:00.000-07:00

This article was not an enjoyable one to write as it is about sexual assault. The only thing I do feel good about, however, is that I believe I aided the victim correct a lot of misinformation that was circulated about her case.

Rape victim speaks out

If you have an E2 visa read this!

2009-08-11T01:18:00.000-07:00

I just read this in the Korea Times. It's written by Alexander Washko and is an account of his trip back to Korea from his vacation. How globally dynamic and sparkling the customs officials seem. Provided that what has been written is true, I really feel for the guy.

Disgrace and Humiliation

First Article With The Korea Herald

2009-07-22T03:37:00.000-07:00

Well, copy editing is going ok and I have finally got my name in print in a newspaper. Dr. Kang was a very interesting man to interview. I can't beleive the lack of press attention he gets here. Even at The Herald, people were like..."ok we can print it, you get 500 words." There are stories about IPhones that have gotten a higher word count. We're talking about a guy who may have the vaccine for HIV/AIDS. Luckily I was told I could go over the limit. Ended up a little over double.

Native Korean at forefront of AIDS fight

In Honour of the Moon Landing

2009-07-21T20:40:00.001-07:00

By all means listen to the mythbusters but if you want to see Buzz Aldrin punch a moon landing conspiracy theorist in the face go to the three minute mark!