London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

Upcoming books on Korean film

Just as the Korean film scene seems to be losing some of its buzz, books about it are coming thick and fast. 2004 saw the Wallflower Press book (though it seems only last year that it came out); 2005 saw the Julian Stringer / Shin Chi-yun book; and last year came the book on Kim … [Read More]

Brits need not apply

Or Aussies or Kiwis for that matter. A full-page ad in the current issue of Seoul Magazine seeks to satisfy Korea’s seemingly insatiable appetite for English language teachers. The ad starts: Thousands of College Graduates are going to South Korea to teach English to pay off their student loans and to gain international experience. The … [Read More]

Cute videos featuring brotherly love

I couldn’t resist posting these videos. Read the Party Pooper’s commentary on them here, with links to more SuJu vids. First, Super Junior – stranded on the road to Busan, only 21 dollars between them, and having to share a room for the night. Sweet. And now TVXQ / DBSK Read Rowan Pease’s commentary on … [Read More]

Sorok Island joined to the mainland

Yi Chong-jun’s (이청준) novel on the subject is called Your Paradise. Looking at the beach above you see maybe one reason. But Sorok Island (소록도) is Korea’s best known leper colony. As Brother Anthony explains, in Yi’s book, the subject is the relation between the individual and the collective. The setting is the remote leper … [Read More]

Book review: J Scott Burgeson — Korea Bug

J Scott Burgeson: Korea Bug Eunhaeng Namu, Seoul, 2005 A recent article in the JoongAng daily about a foreigner in Seoul who hasn’t made himself popular with hypersensitive and volatile Korean netizens introduced me to a gem. Burgeson, a foreigner who has been in Seoul since 1996 is one of the more unusual expats out … [Read More]

The fate of North Korean returnees

“The only way I’m going back to Korea is in a coffin” said a North Korean woman now living in China. Her story, recently told in the Daily Telegraph, is typical of the experience of a certain category of North Koreans in China. What that category is called depends on your orientation — economic migrants, … [Read More]

July statistics and site updates

Traffic Not much changes month on month now. Whatever set of statistics you look at, my growth period seems to have come to an end. Just as well given the problem reported last month regarding my using too much CPU. The site isn’t taken offline quite so frequently any more, but maybe that’s just because … [Read More]

The beauty of particular body parts 2

Thanks to Mrs Daeguowl for the nomination of Gong Yu (공유) for the competition of most sculpted six-pack. Here’s a sample: And something I forgot to include in yesterday’s post. With a big hat tip to Scott Burgeson1, here’s an itemisation of how the body parts for Miss Korea should stack up, taken from an … [Read More]

The beauty of particular body parts

Browsing through the celebrity rags the other day I came across a report of a survey which struck me as rather distasteful: the actress with the most beautiful chest. I’m not sure why it struck me as distasteful, seeing as in the UK we have a light-hearted annual survey as to which female celebrity has … [Read More]

Growing interest in DPRK art show

The North Korean art exhibition in Pall Mall is gathering momentum. A small-scale re-hang has seen more propaganda posters in the window facing the Institute of Directors (above), which encourages passing traffic. The jewel painting is now hung so that pedestrians in the Royal Opera Arcade get greeted by it. The big painting of the … [Read More]

Crossing the Line screening, with Q&A

One of these last-minute things I’m afraid. I just checked my least-used email account to find information about a screening of Crossing the Line at the Frontline Club (near Paddington Station) tomorrow, Sunday. There was to have been a Q&A hosted by director Dan Gordon, but he’s had to pull out due to ill health, … [Read More]

The Korean peasants’ revolt

Anyone who has read Yi Mun-yol’s popular book The Poet may be interested in a new book which sets out the historical background. In Yi’s fictional biography, the poet Kim Sakkat is ostracised from society, condemned to life as a vagabond, because of his grandfather’s actions during the peasants’ revolt in Northest Korea in 1812. … [Read More]