137) Endorsements 4:38 PM

Kim Yuna - homegirl is everywhere. The Queen, as she is fondly called, graces the windows of store fronts left and right, pairing her face with everything from cell phones to clothing lines to banking services. According to CNN, Yuna landed $10 million worth in sponsorships and endorsements immediately after her Olympic win. Aside from her own benefit, the Kim Yuna brand has been stimulating the Korean economy itself.

All the Yuna sightings made me think of America's own endorsement King. According to Forbes, Tiger Woods brought in $105 million in endorsements in 2009 - more than the next three highest paid athletes combined. While Tiger Woods' figure dwarfs Kim Yuna's, their choice of products and their public image raise some interesting points. Even though Tiger ostensibly has more endorsement deals, you couldn't say that you walk around and see his face everywhere. Yuna is an omnipresent spokesperson to the people, the everyday passerby, while Tiger's caters to a more exclusive consumer. Tiger has been called a lot of things this year as a result of his actions, none of which is equivalent to The Queen or The Fairy of the Ice.

Clearly, it's not enough to be amazing at your given sport - not all athlete endorsers are created equal.

136) Something New, Something Old 4:19 PM

There's something magical about touching down in a city you've never been to before. (Ok, technically I've been to Seoul, but my 2 year-old self doesn't remember a thing.) Each unique skyline holds the promise of discovery, of utter difference from what you're used to. We landed in the early evening, but the sun quickly hid itself, revealing a metropolis of neon perched on sky-high buildings.

But while I was overwhelmed by the brand new, I couldn't help but notice that which was the same on the street level. Not-so-little American stake holds that dot the landscape in the form of Dunkin Donuts, KFC, Coffee Bean, Outback Steakhouse and of course, Starbucks. And I'm not talking about spotting one of each - not like, oh look, the only Outback Steakhouse in all of Seoul. This was multiple locations noted on the bus ride from the airport and within the area around our hotel. While not completely shocking - Seoul is known for embracing the West - it'll be interesting to see which brands manage to gain popularity on Korean soil, and what that says about local consumers.

135) Time Out, Beijing 9:37 AM

(Photo from Layout Sparks.)

Warning: this post may be NSFW. Thankfully, it's Sunday.

Some expats also recommend you bring your own condoms. Brands on sale here tend to be a little, shall we say, 'snug'.
- Time Out Beijing

Let's just put it out there. According to popular stereotype, the Asian male possesses a smaller penis than his Caucasian and African American counterparts. Like all stereotypes, there are surely examples; perhaps, a more-common-than-average tendency towards smaller, er, samples (stereotypes don't appear out of thin air). Likewise, there are plenty of counterexamples - Asian stallions and Caucasians with teenie weenies.

All joking aside, it's strange that the stereotype be perpetuated by the Time Out Beijing editors. Either it is simply a Western jab at Asian nether regions, or Chinese condom companies actually do produce smaller rubbers. Given that there are no studies that prove a definitive relation between penis size and race, either scenario seems unfounded. (Mini aside - in my brief research I found this 2006 BBC article about standard condoms being too big for Indian men. Apparently, appropriate condom sizing is more pressing than we think. All the more reason a condom brand should invest in an international penis size study - think of the value of that data!)

Aside from the debated validity of the stereotype, the equally important question is the why. Many distinguishing racial physical features can be boiled down to some evolutionary explanation. The common Asian single fold eyelid is hypothesized to arise from harsher climates and greater exposure to UV radiation of yesteryear (more fat in the lid for eyeball protection - thus, one fold instead of two). Likewise, coarse hair, fair or black skin are all linked back to conditions during the era of evolutionary adaptiveness. Can, then, varying penile size between races be explained in such terms?

Until there is proof, the stereotype lives on. I won't even go into the socio-cultural aspects of all this. The stereotype of the strong, masculine, athletic and superior Caucasian comparing his manhood to that of a small, meek, nerdy and inferior Asian will have to be saved for a later post.

(Mini aside - As you're reading about penises, I'm up in the air en route to Seoul. We'll be meeting up with my brothers and spending a few days in the motherland before we head to Beijing and Shanghai. I'm hoping that I'll be able to anticipate any days without internet access so that there will be no missed days on The Plan. I can't wait to see what kind of posts Korea and China inspire. I realize that I've been doing a lot of self-absorbed whining on here lately. Like a spoiled brat, I've been hemming and hawing over things in spite of an amazing vacation and the freedom to pursue NY. No more.)

134) Thinking Face 4:43 PM

For those of you who weren't subjected to the Kumon learning method, here's a picture painted from several years of Tuesday and Friday torture. Upon entering, you're greeted by the too-sweet smell of Japanese erasers (the little ones that comes in various fruit or Hello Kitty shapes) mixed with that warm paper smell that seeps out of Xerox machines. You hand over your plastic white box, and your (hopefully completed) homework is whipped out and replaced with fresh problem set packets, including the one you will complete in class. You sit at the appropriate table for your level, whereupon an instructor uses a stopwatch to time how fast you can complete your packet. The problem sets are grossly repetitive - the aim of Kumon is to drill the problems into your head, until you reach the optimal speed vs. accuracy intersection. After you're done, you make your way over to another table where you time yourself as you match these magnetic circles numbered 1-100 with the corresponding numbers listed numerically 1-100 on a board. (To this day, I don't understand why it was so important to be able to quickly identify and match numbers.)

It was not a place I wanted to be, yet every Tuesday and Friday after school, there I was. So I was highly amused by the new logo that Kumon rolled out a couple years ago (pictured above). I could not think of a better face to represent what a child feels like at Kumon. According to Closer to Fine, the corporate press release (now pulled from site) stated that the emoticon is supposed to be a "hand drawn 'Thinking Face'" supposedly reflecting "Kumon’s philosophy that every child possesses unlimited potential." Something was definitely lost in translation, because that face looks more like the helpless ennui and melancholy of a child forced into extra-curricular tutoring, tight-lipped at the prospect of having his packets graded by an elderly man with two thumbs on one hand (true story).

I am dying to hear some focus groups of former Kumon students discussing the new logo. For me, it's the perfect reflection of my Kumon experience at the expense of the brand. Unfortunately, prospective students (read: their parents) may read into it differently.

133) Time Relevance 5:09 PM

(Photo from one+infinity.)

And so it begins. In the past couple of days I've had to say goodbye for now to two of my closest friends in LA. I know this part is inevitable, but somehow the fact that our schedules won't sync up before I leave for NY makes it seem premature. Thankfully, one of them said something really wise as we bid adieu. He said not to worry, because as we get older, time has different meaning.

For me it started in high school. Every year seemed to go by just a little bit faster. In college, time continued to pick up the pace, until all of sudden I'm throwing my grad cap in the air. Out in the real world, settling into a work routine, days and months fly by. You feel like you're constantly looking up and saying, how is it already [insert month, season or year here]?

While sometimes terrifying, this acceleration of time makes the months of not seeing friends less relevant. Sure, to not be able to see certain people any time I want will be an adjustment. But it's not like this is the first (or last) time I've moved away from friends (Gunn HS '04, what up). I guess it feels different this time, since it's not a necessity move the way the relocation for college was. (Or is it?)

132) Recession Trend 7:19 PM

(Photo from here.)

Sprinkles, Crumbs Bake Shop, Vanilla Back Shop, Yummy Cupcake, Susiecakes, and the recently christened Magnolia Bakery - in LA, the cupcake still reigns supreme, reflecting a nationwide love that seems to be withstanding the test of time. Some identify that one episode of Sex and the City (the one where Carrie meets Aidan *swoons) as the catalyst that propelled Magnolia and its buttery cupcakes into popularity over ten years ago (only increased, of course, by SNL's Lazy Sunday digital short).

While cupcakes may have started out as a fanciful treat enjoyed guiltlessly by Carrie and Miranda, their swell in popularity over the past few years seems to indicate a recession trend. It's been shown that lipstick sales surge in times of uncertainty (post-9/11, the Great Depression, according to the Guardian). Women scale back on larger designer purchases, and turn to little luxuries. What better than a tube of perfect red lipstick to make a woman feel glamorous during hard times?

The same can be said about cupcakes. At $2-3.50 a pop, it's a small indulgence, a highly affordable pick me up. Sugary and polished, all lined up uniformly in the case like an army of dainty delicacies. It's structure of cake body plus frosted top allows for a variety of flavor, color and decoration combination, something that cookies, brownies and doughnuts can't match. This also allows for multiple bakeries in one market.

Some have been quick to list cupcakes as a dying food trend (followed by speculation over its heir - cake balls? whoopie pies? macarons?), but the very recent opening of Magnolia Bakery in LA suggests otherwise. And because they're so dang visual, I leave you with some cupcake images. (I just realized how girly they are...perhaps males won't be able to relate. A female-skewed trend then?)









(Photos from NC State University, David Daniels Photography, Dinner Cakes, and The Rest is Just Icing.)

131) The Network 9:52 PM

(Photo from the University of Minnesota)

Just a quick note tonight. I'm continually amazed at how readily people offer up their contacts. I popped over to happy hour at the company I used to work for, and had two different people tell me they could put me in touch with people they know in New York. And these weren't even people I used to work closely with - in fact, I had just met one of them tonight. It's so true when people say that the world runs on networks. Now, more than ever with the relocation and impending job search, I'm seeing the power of networks first hand.