London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

Cairo Declaration and Korean service in British army commemorated in SOAS conference

Hands up, anyone who had actually heard of the Cairo Declaration before this SOAS conference designed to mark its 80th anniversary? I certainly hadn’t. Winston Churchill was in Cairo with a contingent of over 100 diplomatic and administrative staff, in late November 1943, where along with Chang Kai-shek and President Roosevelt they were starting to … [Read More]

John Lee and the Kingdom of Pines

Not a write-up of John Lee’s fascinating recent talk at SOAS – more a place to store a couple of images of the translations of relevant sources that he talked about so that I don’t lose them. I for one am looking forward immensely to seeing this material fully discussed in his upcoming monograph, Kingdom … [Read More]

Javier Cha on the uses of digitised historical data

Last night at SOAS there was a choice of two early evening events to start the weekend. I only heard about the appearance of South Korean queer artist and activist Heezy Yang (aka Hurricane Kimchi) two hours before the event, and I had already prepared myself mentally for the Centre of Korean Studies seminar on … [Read More]

Beth McKillop reports from the 2016 Culture Communication Forum in Seoul

Senior Research Fellow and former Deputy Director at the Victoria and Albert Museum Beth McKillop was the UK’s representative at Korea’s annual Culture Communication Forum hosted by the Corea Image Communication Institute. Since 1990 when I first visited Korea to collect ceramics, outfits and furniture for a planned Victoria and Albert Museum Korea gallery, I’ve … [Read More]

Conference report: UK-Korea Creative Industries Forum

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has recently posted a brief round-up of the Creative Industries Forum held at the BFI earlier this month. The conference provided the opportunity for Korean Minister of Culture Kim Jongdeok and Culture Secretary John Whittingdale to sign a joint statement in which “Both sides agreed to continue to … [Read More]