Sunday was April 1st, and we had a bit of fun, transforming the J-List front page into K-List (“you’ve got a friend in Korea!”) for a day, your source for Korean products. We stocked all the finest kimchee, Korean knockoff versions of Pocky and Kit Kat, photobooks of beautiful Dokdo/Takeshima (the islands disputed by both Japan and Korea) and the official drink of Starcraft players, and teased them over their love of arguing with Japan over which country originated this-or-that. We were kind of doki doki (nervous) as we made the page, since Koreans can be a very passionate people — its part of their kokumin-sei, or national character, just as it’s the nature of Japanese to avoid unpleasant confrontations whenever possible — and they might not like a little good-natured razzing. Happily we received no angry emails and no Taepdong missiles through our windows. To me, the sign of a mature nation is the ability to endure the mocking of its institutions without exploding, the best example being the existence of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and as South Korean culture grows in importance in the world, we hope to see them continue to mellow like other nations.
J-List became your “Friend in Korea!” for a day.
