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Kaesong: ancient book-keepers, modern traders

30-Nov-08

It was a very tantalising lecture. Dr Lewis and his co-authors had been given jpeg images of 18th-century accounting records from Kaesong by a shadowy intermediary. The agent hoped that having seen some quality goods, representing a very small portion of a set of books and records, the academics would fork out hard cash for the complete picture (if indeed it exists). In the first part of the lecture, Dr Lewis spent much time reviewing various modern materials which discuss the importance of double-entry book-keeping. Humble bean-counters will be encouraged that some authors place the invention of double-entry book-keeping on the same level as the discoveries of Galileo, while other scholars claim that capitalism would be impossible without it. In the ...

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Kim Ji-woon in London: bigger, faster

12-Nov-08

Friday night’s screening of The Good the Bad and the Weird (좋은 놈, 나쁜 놈, 이상한 놈, hereafter Nom Nom Nom) was followed by a screen talk with director Kim Ji-woon and actor Lee Byung-hun, chaired by Tony Rayns. Lee Byung-hun was late for the chat, either tied up with promotional activities for his upcoming films or maybe just lost in the Barbican labyrinth. Rayns is the UK’s longest established expert on Korean film, and organised a Korean film festival at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts almost 10 years before Jonathan Ross ever heard of Park Chan-wook. He knows many of the big names in Chungmuro personally, and has even conducted an interview with maverick director Jang Sun-woo half naked in ...

Also filed in Autumn K-Film 2008, Event reports and reviews, Film, Interviews and features, Kim Ji-woon | Tagged Ticker | Comments (0) »

Blight, Hope and Photoshop

25-Oct-08

“This is not a Korean exhibition” announced Lee Chan-Buom, Director of the Cultural Cooperation Division of Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade as he introduced the panellists at a fascinating discussion to coincide with the “Blight and Hope” exhibition at the KCC. With sponsorship from the British Council and the UNDP, there was to plenty support Director Lee’s claim of “widespread ownership” for the exhibition. But of course there is a Korean angle. Korea has had the experience of extreme poverty within the living memory of half its population. Indeed, One of Lee’s earliest memories was of an overnight visit from a burglar who raided his kitchen for food and then washed the dishes afterwards. [caption id="attachment_6318" align="aligncenter" width="440" caption="Myung-duck Joo ...

Also filed in Blight and Hope, Event reports and reviews, KCCUK, Other exhibitions, Photography | Tagged Ticker | Comments (0) »

The Birth of the YKABs (Young Korean Artists in Britain)!

21-Oct-08

‘4482: Korean Contemporary Artists London’ exhibition, 16th – 19th October. Seminar, ‘How to promote Korean Art Abroad,’ 18th October 2008. Both at Bargehouse, Southwark. Report by Beccy Kennedy Take forty contemporary artists, a fervent independent curator, an unexpected art space, four floors of art works in throngs of media and genres, and a thriving spot by the Thames, and what do you get? A distinctive, cutting edge art show and a journey on a possible zeitgeist. Aside from the presence of this effortless multiplicity, ‘4482’ is also an opportunity to see what Korea has to offer the British art scene. The answer to this would be that to some degree, Korea is the British art scene. Over the past ten years or so, Koreans ...

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A week is a long time in … Korean economics

20-Oct-08

By Peter Corbishley Given the present economic world order, last week was an opportune time for an update on Korean peninsular economics. First Aidan Foster Carter tells BAKS that in August President Lee Myung-bak’s military banned “Bad Samaritans,” by Chang Ha-joon, an economics professor at the University of Cambridge, for being un-Korean. Then on the same day the self-same Professor was at the LSE as part of an academic bridge-building exercise with Korean Universities, sponsored by the Korea Foundation. Well, Chang was able to give all kinds of interesting tit-bits as to how and when the ‘free market’ economy has acted as a ‘non-free market economy’ but the talk did not quite match up the billing of Korea’s response to the ...

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Pansori and bibimbap – fusion in Korea’s cultural content

03-Oct-08

By Peter Corbishley Last Thursday and Friday 24-25th September an itinerant band of Pansori sellers displayed their wares at the Korean Cultural Centre (KCC) and the School of Advanced Study, University of London. The main event was Yonsei University’s (Institute of Media Art) Jeong Taeg Lim and Jung A Huh’s talk on ‘The Aesthetic modernity of the traditional Korean music drama “Pansori”’ as part of the joint Institute for Germanic and Romance Studies (IGRS) & Institute for Musical Research conference on ‘Opera, Exoticism and Visual Culture’ mistress-minded by another Korean, Dr Hyunseon Lee of IGRS. The hors d’oeuvre (almost literally as the main focus was on ‘bibimpap’ as a metaphor for fusion in Korean culture) on the previous evening at the ...

Also filed in Hallyu, Korean traditional music | | Comments (3) »

BAKS conference report: looking forward / looking back

12-Sep-08

The 2008 BAKS conference at Clare College Cambridge started and finished with talks with a distinctly global flavour. People came from the four corners of the globe, with presenters from New Zealand, Singapore, Hawaii, Germany and the US. And we were also fortunate to have the support of the ROK ambassador, Chun Young-woo, plus the immediate past UK ambassador to the ROK, Warwick Morris. [caption id="attachment_5224" align="alignright" width="183" caption="Nami Morris performs Jindo Buk Chum"][/caption] The conference opened with a bang, as the champagne corks popped in the Clare College JCR bar – generously funded by the ROK embassy – followed by some Jindo drumming from Nami Morris in the adjoining vaulted crypt underneath the Chapel. Lee Chul Jin then performed an atmospheric ...

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Grandpa as salesman

26-Jun-08

The Image of the Elderly in British and Korean Contemporary Advertising‏ Lecture by Dr. Hyunsun Yoon Korean Cultural Centre, 24th June 2008 Report by Saharial, with photo by Matthew Jackson This informative lecture by Dr. Hyunsun Yoon examined the way the elderly are represented in both British and Korean advertising. A growing demographic, the elderly population is regarded with a great difference between the two cultures, something demonstrated well when comparing various advertising clips. Confucian values of family, filial duty and respect for the elderly provide the basis for the Korean perception, the elderly portrayed as helpful, doing gentle activities, imparting wisdom and embodying the feeling of ‘Han’. ‘Han’ is a concept of wistfulness, nostalgia and reminiscence, often related to the unique political situation in ...

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Bargains at SOAS publishing workshop

21-Jun-08

It’s always worth turning up to an event when you know that book publishers are present. Brill, Saffron and Global Oriental were all present at the SOAS Korean publishing workshop on Monday. With Saffron selling their catalogue at half price on the night, and Global Oriental discounting everything to £20 (including the collected BAKS papers, list price £95), there were plenty of bargains to be had, and I managed to cancel a few items off my Amazon wishlist as well as purchase a couple of books I headn’t been tracking. The event was partly to celebrate the launch of the Selected Writings of Han Yongun (above right), which was done in style, with plenteous wine and nibbles plus a traditional dance ...

Also filed in General book news, SOAS | Tagged Ticker | Comments (0) »

Im Sang Soo: Uncut

04-Jun-08

As part of the Tiger Asian film festival Im Sang Soo, director of socio-political films ‘The President’s Last Bang’, ‘A Good Lawyer’s Wife’ and ‘The Old Garden’, held a Q&A session on 30th May 2008 at the Korean Cultural Centre in London. There was a small but select feel to the gathering that took place in the multipurpose hall. It was an illuminating event, even for those who had neither seen nor heard of the films prior to this event – of which there were more than a few. Questions and answers were translated on the spot by Seh Hyun Rho to whom we extend our thanks and also to the Korean Cultural Centre for hosting the event. The following is a ...

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Also filed in Film, Im Sang-soo, KCC Film Club, KCCUK | Tagged Best of LKL, Ticker | Comments (2) »

The financial sector as engine for growth

31-May-08

There was no hope of applying the Chatham House rule at yesterday's talk by HE Dr Jun Kwang-woo, chairman of Korea's Financial Services Commission. With two TV cameras and numerous digital recorders on show, this meeting was firmly on the record. Reflecting the more formal nature of this meeting, Dr Jun spoke from a prepared text, though there was also a generous amount of time afterwards for Dr Jun to take questions from the floor. It was a whistle-stop tour for Dr Jun. Earlier in the week he had been at the IOSCO meeting in Paris, where he was appointed Chair of IOSCO's regional committee for Asia. He was only in London for the day and was heading back to Seoul immediately ...

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North Korea: new approaches - conference report

23-Jan-08

The panel and attendance list of the 8th International Conference on North Korean Human Rights & Refugees was a who’s who of North Korean experts and Koreanists in general ((The Chatham House Rule was invoked, and a strict reading of that implies that I can’t say who was in the audience, but at least the speakers are a matter of public record)). As expected, there was no representation from the DPRK embassy. Given that more than one panellist characterised past conferences as “people getting together to bash North Korea and feeling better afterwards” that was hardly surprising. But this conference was billed as exploring new approaches, so maybe a different attitude might have been fondly hoped-for this year. Instead, the ...

Also filed in Chatham House, DPRK, Human Rights | | Comments (0) »

Class struggles

20-Jan-08

Those Koreanists who looked at the timing of the talk by Loren Goldner and decided to give it a miss were probably well advised. 6pm on a Saturday night is not the best time to pull in the punters. But inside the rather pokey Kings Cross bookshop it was standing room only. Those who turned up early and got one of the rickety seats were wondering whether it was safer and more comfortable to join the latecomers standing. The audience was made up of the alternative clientele which I assume frequents this alternative bookshop. Shaggy beards and unkempt pony-tails predominated among the men, while strangely the women were much better turned out. Judging by the questions afterwards, the interests of ...

Also filed in Event reports and reviews, Historical | | Comments (0) »

Dec 07 BAKS conference report #7: Koen De Ceuster

07-Dec-07

Dr Koen De Ceuster - Docent, Leiden University The Korean delegation at the 1907 Peace Conference in The Hague Abstract: Barred from attending the Hague Peace Conference, the Korean delegation at first sight miserably failed in its task of representing Korea at the Conference. Reading this episode as a continuation of Kojong's ongoing attempts to secure Korean neutrality under international law, the dispatch of the delegation to The Hague becomes a show of great acumen by Kojong who confronted the powers with the ambiguity between the lofty ideals of sovereign equality and the reality of 'legalized hierarchies'. Approaching the Korean deputation from perspective of the international community present in The Hague and its reactions to the sudden appearance of this unexpected deputation, ...

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Dec 07 BAKS conference report #6: Owen Miller

07-Dec-07

Dr Owen Miller - Research Fellow, Centre for Korean Studies, SOAS The crisis of Seoul's traditional commercial system, 1876-1895 Abstract: The guild system of late Chosŏn Seoul and the guild-government trade underpinned the commerce of the capital city and represented a significant slice of national commerce as a whole. This premodern commercial system rested on three planks: a government that could afford to pay high prices for commodities; long-term stability in market prices; and a system of mixed commodity payments. However, in the 1880s all three of these factors were undermined, primarily by severe inflation and government insolvency, but also by the entrance of foreign merchants into the market and increased levels of bureaucratic corruption. This paper traces the origins and development ...