CAB (Cute Asian Boy) Alert: Seung Ri

I don’t know if it would be strictly accurate to call Seung Ri South Korea’s answer to Justin Timberlake, but I will say this – the boy is luscious and the comparison is an easy one to make.  His real name is Lee Seunghyun and he just turned 18, which means he gets an only slightly guilty second look here on BCP.  Seung Ri is part of a South Korean hip hop and R&B boy group called Big Bang, known for their sartorial style and writing and producing their own music.  Below is the video from his solo song (featuring fellow band member G-Dragon), “Strong Baby”:

YUM.  Upon the third viewing, I even spied a Timberlakean crotch grab around 3:04. 

Now, I have not been generally attracted to Asian guys, but I have noted that when I meet or run across a major CAB, they are among the best-looking dudes on the planet.  We’ve all rolled our eyes at certain guys and their alleged fetish for Asian women – is there an underground, feminine fetish for Asian men to which I’ve not been privy?  And is it really a “fetish” or just your aesthetic preference?  Why don’t we see more hot Asians in the Western media?  I also realized that by even identifying Seung Ri as a CAB, I’ve qualified his hotness by highlighting his race, in a way that I would never clarify that another hot guy was white or black, or even Hispanic.  Is this racist, or an an acknowledgment of otherness bred by the fact that Asians are so underrepresented in mass media?  But wait!  If it was a hot Norwegian guy, I would definitely use that as a descriptor.  So…

Maybe I am overthinking this and need to sit back with a glass of wine and watch “Strong Baby” again (especially the shirtless bit at 3:13).  Maybe a hot guy is just a hot guy and an adjective doesn’t have to be loaded – besides, I feel worse over the fact that he’s only 18 than any racial confusion I’ve talked myself into.

 

The Blind Masseurs Are Rioting, But With Reason?

CNN reported yesterday that 26 blind masseurs in South Korea have been arrested after threatening to jump from a Han River bridge in protest of the Health Ministry’s decision to grant licenses to sighted masseurs for some types of massage.  Since 1963, only the blind have been authorized to practice massage, and the protestors assert that the new policy endangers their livelihoods.  The notion of reserving massage as the professional provision of the blind was originally introduced by Japanese colonialists in 1913, and provides the disabled with a protected means of gainful employment.  Two protestors jumped from the bridge after a struggle with police, and some set fire to a car (no injuries reported in this instance, although The New York Times reports that two blind masseurs were killed after throwing themselves from buildings and onto subway tracks).

Once I finally wrapped my tiny mind around the tragicomic, absurdist nature of this article (it took a couple of reads and some double-checking to ensure I wasn’t reading the synopsis of a new Coen Brothers flick), I realized it raised some interesting questions. 

The protesters said the new policy puts their jobs at risk. There are about 15,000 licensed masseurs in the country, which has a blind population of 216,000.

“Medical massage is almost the only profession that is open to the blind people. The ministry’s decision is threatening our right to live,” Shim Wook-seop, one of the protesting masseurs, was quoted as saying.