Blaine's latest...

are two stories about women and social pressures in Japan and South Korea.

This story looks at why Japanese women are so thin - and they are incredibly thin. While American women have gained weight - obesity has risen from 17 percent to 35 percent since 1980, Japanese women (other than those over age 70) have actually lost weight over the past 25 years.

If you go into most clothing stores here, even Banana Republic in expat-friendly Roppongi Hills, there aren't many items over a size 6 and size 0 is very common. (This, and the fact that almost everything is sized for shorter people, saves me heaps of time and money.) In the US, many women gain weight during pregnancy and never lose it, but several Japanese moms at Arno's or Lucinda's school have had babies and bounce back below 100 lbs within a few months.

But many women take thinness to scary levels; it's anecdotal, of course, but I've seen many more anorexic women here than I ever did in NYC.

Blaine's second story (which actually ran first) is about the difficulties of being a working mother in South Korea. One woman, a marketing executive with a 6-yr-old son, took out full-page newspaper advertisements to declare "I Am a Bad Woman" because she is sick of being criticized by her husband, son and mother-in-law for continuing to work.

The story includes this astonishing statistic: "South Korean law allows a full year of subsidized parental leave, but intense peer pressure at work means that working mothers usually take little time off, according to government surveys. Only about 35,000 parents in this country of 49 million people (my italics) took advantage of child-care leave subsidies last year."

It's fascinating to compare lifestyles in Japan and other countries we visit to the American way of life; every country has its own specific pathologies. In Japan, it's incredibly difficult for Japanese women to have full-time, high-powered jobs and also have children - in part because Japan's immigration laws don't allow them to hire lower-cost immigrants for childcare. (Expats with certain work visas can, by contrast, hire immigrants as nannies.) The Japanese also smoke much more than Americans do.

But it's impossible not to live here and not recognize that the U.S. has serious food issues. It's not just about obesity rates, but (I think) because the food industry creates and Americans accept a high-volume array of processed foods that have too much salt, sugar, fat and calories. In Japan, food is seasonal, served in much smaller but still filling portions and lacks the American corn-syrupy sweetness, even in chocolate. Arno recently took a small bite of a Milky Way that was leftover from Halloween, declared it was too sweet, didn't eat the rest.

Trailing Spouse: Obama edition

Blaine has been quite busy in the past week covering President Obama's visits to Japan and, today, to South Korea.

Here are some of his stories, often with WashPost White House correspondent Anne Kornblut:

Hiroshima: The dreaded invitation
Obama declines offer to visit the bombed city on his first trip to East Asia

In Japan, Obama stresses Asia's role in U.S. economy

Obama, Japanese premier at odds over air station negotiations

Obama to discuss vexing N. Korean behavior with S. Korean leader

In Seoul, Obama will confront trade and security issues

Blaine's latest...

...is a flurry of stories about South and North Korea.

Here's today's piece about the very emotional funeral, post-suicide, of former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun. Great reporting by Blaine's translator in Seoul, Stella Kim.

And on North Korea, here is:

North Korean Nuclear Blast Draws Global Condemnation, an awesome front-page rewrite of material from correspondents all over the world.

North Korea Test-Fires Short-Range Missiles

North Korea Threatens to Attack South

Lots of action these days in the Post's East Asia bureau!

Funny eggs

Lucinda told me about this funny short animation series called I Love Egg (www.iloveegg.com) that appears on Cartoon Network here. I think it's from South Korea.

The eggs go to "Egg School" and there are little stories about each one of them. The English translation is a little silly. Here are some frames from the website.




Here's a storyboard, or whatever it's called, in Korean for a short animation called "Revenge."


And a strip called "Good Conduct".

Blaine's latest...

is a dramatic video and story from South Korea about a North Korean defector who gets fights with activists as he tries to launch balloons carrying leaflets criticizing Kim Jong-il. Here's the excellent video and here's the story.

This is Blaine's first experience as a breaking-news one-man-band. He woke up at 6 a.m., talked to the defector, went to the protest, and shot video of the defector arguing with the activists, kicking a man in the head, and launching one balloon. Then Blaine went back to his hotel, wrote a story, edited the video and went to bed around midnight. Eesh!

This is what modern journalism looks like: do everything.

Blaine's latest...

Blaine had three more Condi and N Korea-related stories over the weekend. His job is a heap of hard work.

US sends shipment of wheat

SecState fails to solveS Korean protests about US beef.

and

N Korea blows up cooling tower.

Blaine's latest

... are two stories from South Korea about protests against the importation of American beef.

Blaine's first story, on June 4, was about massive demonstrations by moms and kids who believe U.S. beef companies will dump mad-cow-infested beef in Korea. The new S Korean president has partly reimposed a ban on US beef that he lifted in April.

The story has this classic over-the-top quote from a fearful teenager:

Cha Yoon-min, 13, attended the protest with his mother, a lawyer in Seoul. "I am afraid of American beef," he said. "I could study hard in school. I could get a good job and then I could eat beef and just die."

Blaine's second story looked at broader fears in S Korea about meat products, including worries about bird flu in domestic poulty.

Funny oops: The US ambassador in Seoul had to apologize after saying that Koreans should "learn more about science" instead of worrying about US beef products. South Koreans are among the world's best in science education and research; the Bush administration, not so much. See also: stem-cell research and global warming.

Blaine's latest...

Blaine is covering the presidential election in South Korea. It's definitely not as exciting as the Iowa caucuses.

Trailing Spouse - Korean Summit edition

Blaine has been in Seoul all week to cover the summit between South and North Korea - find his many WaPo stories here. He'll be home tomorrow after lunch.

But we've had an improved week of solo parenting. I've gotten the morning routine better organized, so I can get them out the door by 7:55 a.m. The children love school right now and don't stall on the way out the door.

After school, I've been taking L and A to a playground to fully wear them out. We're having cooler, fall-like weather here - finally! - and that is great playdate weather. Then an early dinner and bedtime by 8pm.

Now, if only I could stop reading news websites to get more sleep.

Blaine's latest stories

The WashPost (a/k/a the WP or WaPo) published two terrific Blaine stories this weekend.

Today he has an entertaining, creepy piece about the plastic surgery capital of Asia: Seoul, South Korea. The headline is "Assembly Required" and here is the lede.

"With wide eyes, sleek cheekbones and delicately upturned noses, the soap stars look alluringly and somewhat numbingly alike -- thanks to their own visits to the scalpel-wielding wizards whose gleaming clinics are clustered in a part of this city called "Makeover Town."..."

Yesterday (Saturday), Blaine had a story about Billy's Bootcamp, an exercise fad in Japan that has earned an aging American exercise guru more than $120 million, in a country where women and men are already shockingly thin.

Here are some choice grafs:

"Feel the power!" commands Blanks, who first felt the power of infomercials in the 1990s, when TV spots for his "Tae Bo total body fitness system" made him gobs of money and helped him land appearances on "ER" and "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

"Blanks has made himself into a household name here by tapping into two lucrative streams that flow from the modern Japanese psyche: an unselfconscious passion for fads and a self-conscious concern about being overweight...."


Stories like these set Blaine apart as a newspaper writer in America, not just because they are fun to read but because he identifies and wittily explains the social contexts that give birth to trends like these. Okay, so I'm his wife, but I also know what makes a good story even better.

Blaine's latest

Blaine has a fun story (Wednesday) about South Koreans who lie on their resumes about college degrees to get ahead in Korean society and business. Even a Buddhist monk did it!

Blaine's latest story

Here's Blaine's story about the S Korean Christians who went to Afghanistan to proselytize and were held hostage for 6 weeks by the Taliban.

The former hostages landed in Seoul this morning and Blaine was up at 6 a.m. to write about their return - and the alleged payment of $20 million to the Taliban to free them. Nice going, South Koreans!