Introducing Korea Beat / “코리아 비트”란?

안녕하세요, FeetManSeoul의 팬들! 저는 네이슨 (Nathan)인데, 흥미롭거나 색다른 한국어 기사를 영어로 번역하는 사이트 “코리아 비트” (Korea Beat)의 주인입나다. FeetManSeoul과 Korea Beat는 서로 좋은데 자주 여기서 패션이나 스타일에 대한 포스트를 합니다, 그 기사를 한국어도 영어도 읽을 수 있죠. FMS가 코맨트를 합니다.

Hello to FeetManSeoul readers! I’m Nathan, and some of you might know about my site Korea Beat, where we translate interesting and offbeat Korean news articles into English. Since FeetManSeoul and Korea Beat like each other I’ll be posting here occasionally with fashion and style-related translations with commentary from FMS himself.

저는 27세 미국 출신 영어강사인데 2년 동안 한국에서 살았습니다. 3.5년 동안 한국말을 공부했는데, 대부분의 공부는 독학. 처음 한국에서 산 뒤 한국의 에너지과 힘이 너무 좋아서 법과대학원을 퇴학하고 한국에 돌아갔습니다. 결국 한국어로 쓴 신문을 읽기 시작했고 한국어기사를 영어로 번역하는 것은 취미로 삼았어서 코리아 비트를 시작했습니다. 이제 한국에 살지 않지만 아직도 한국말을 공부하고 한국에서 마난 제 일본사람인 와이프가 매일 김치를 먹습니다.

I’m a 27-year old American who lived in Korea for two years as an English teacher, so I’ve been studying Korean for about three and a half years, mostly through self-study. The first year that I lived in Korea I grew to love the country’s energy and verve, and then dropped out of law school to go back. Eventually I started reading Korean newspapers for more practice and started translating them into English as a hobby, which grew into putting them on my blog, and Korea Beat was born. Even though I don’t live in Korea these days I still keep up with studying Korean and my wife, who is Japanese, is a serious kimchi addict.

FeetManSeoul의 커뮤니티과 함께 하기로 시작합니다! 그리고 우리 첫 기사가 종아리 수술에 대한 거네요. eDaily에 나온 기사이니까 한국어 원본을 거기에 읽을 수 있어요. 밑에는 영문 번역된 버전이에요.

So, I’m excited to join the FeetManSeoul community! And our first article is about calf surgery in Korea, from the online newspaper eDaily:

Obviously, many women want to have slim legs, but it’s taking care of you calves is especially important for women who do stand-up work. Standing all day thickens your calves, because you’re constantly pumping your calf mucles. When the weather starts getting hot, short skirts and pants come into fashion — and along with them, the anguish of women who work on their feet all day long.

26-year old stewardess Lee Min-Gyeong (pseudonym) agonizes over her thick calves. She wears high heels on flights that can go over 10 hours each, standing all the time, leaving nothing she can do to prevent her calves from getting bigger, and when she looks at her thick calves she doesn’t just not feel good — she has a complex over it. She feels distressed when she compares her legs to those of her co-workers’, and even on her of days she avoids wearing high heels or, of course, short skirts. She heard from a co-worker that there is an easy to solve the problem through surgery, and decided to have calf-reducing surgery. She went for a consultation to a well-known hospital and put in an application to take time off from work.

Cases of thick calves can be grouped three ways — an excessive accumulation of fat; thickening due to both fat and muscle; and finally, an excess of muscle alone. It is possible to get thick calves through too much exercise, but it also happens when you work while standing all day in high heels. Wearing such shoes and then standing for a long time creates a synergy effect in your body because that situation stimulates the production of muscle. The women’s jobs which create the most stress over thick calves are stewardess, teacher, clerk, and narrator model. Because there are so many situations which can create calf thickening, normal liposuction alone cannot solve the problem, but removing muscle can. Because exercise and dieting cannot reduce thick calves, it can be seen that an operation to reduce the amount of muscle is unavoidable.

Previous methods of reducing calf size had the drawback of causing nerve damage which impeded exercise or had other side effects, including relapses and asymmetry, but new surgeries safely remove only muscle. The surgery can remove inner and outer muscle, and its semi-permanent maintenance is a strong point. Also, only local anaesthesia is required and once the swelling subsides a week or two later you can see the results immediately.

Recently, endoscopy is being used to increase the benefits of the new surgery. Jo Gil-hwan, chief of the Misou PLastic Surgery Clinic (미소유성형외과), explained, “the use of endoscopy when performing calf reduction surgery allows for a smaller incision and less scarring. Furthermore, bleeding is reduced and this allows the removal of muscle and fat without touching the nerves and the surgery can be tailored to the individual.” Also, not only can the surgery be used for thick calves caused by obesity but also for those caused by naturally thick calves and those caused by walking around a lot.