It’s been so long since I did a round-up of celebrity news, and nowadays my knowledge of what’s hot in the celebrity world is derived from looking at my site’s statistics where I can identify the google search terms which have landing people on my blog. (1) So here is a collection of random stories … [Read More]
Month: August 2008
Celebrate Chuseok with the Euro Journal
Celebrate Chuseok (추석), the Korean Mid-Autumn Festival. Chuseok, also called Hangawi (한가위: meaning “great middle”), is one of the two main holidays in Korea (the other being New Year’s Day). It is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar Korean calendar. It is to celebrate a good harvest, and Koreans … [Read More]
Celebrate Chuseok with the Anglo Korean Society
The Anglo-Korean Society celebrates Chuseok in an event at Asia House on Tuesday 16 September. Chuseok, or Harvest Moon Festival, is Korea’s main annual celebration and takes place on the 15th day of the Eighth Moon according to the lunar calendar. Usually described as a thanksgiving for a good harvest, its origins lie in ancient … [Read More]
Saturday documentaries at the KCC
Every Saturday from late August and throughout September there will be screenings of a documentary about the remarkable Silla Dynasty “Sarira Casket of Kameun Temple” at the KCC (right). Screenings will last around 20 minutes, and are provisionally scheduled for noon, 2pm and 4pm: Impossible to replicate with modern technology, this 1300 year-old Sarira Casket … [Read More]
BAKS 2008 conference agenda finalised
A reminder of the upcoming BAKS conference, The Koreas at sixty: Looking Forward / Looking Back, to be held in Cambrige 8-10 September. Full details of the cost, and how to book, are on the BAKS website here. You don’t need to be a BAKS member to come along, and the one in Sheffield two … [Read More]
DPRK’s Decision to Suspend Activities to Disable Nuclear Facilities
It has been a while since one of these press releases was circulated from the DPRK embassy in London. This was distributed today. A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Tuesday in connection with the stumbling block laid by the United States in the way of settling the nuclear issue on … [Read More]
English church, Korean choir, great concert
What is aural image is conjured up when you hear of a Civic Chorale? Perhaps a worthy amateur choral society, used to performing madrigals with rather too many singers and too much vibrato, plodding through an annual Messiah at Easter time? Think again when it comes to the Suwon Civic Chorale. This forty-strong choir from … [Read More]
Suwon Civic Chorale in Kingston
Earlier this week the Suwon Civic Chorale were participating in the convention of the Association of British Choral Directors in Lincoln. Friday night saw a gala concert in the cathedral including other world-class choral groups such as the Orlando Consort. Tonight the Suwon choir come to All Saints Parish Church in Kingston market place, KT1 … [Read More]
B-boys promote Korean tourism at KCC
It’s now more than a year since the somewhat controversial launch of the Korea, Sparkling tourism brand. As I suspected at the time, people would get used to it in due course, and now the logo has become a familiar feature on the various tourist literature available. The branding, together with the Han Style campaign … [Read More]
Make this Saturday a Korean day
I’ve already told you about the films this Saturday. Take your pick between The Chaser at 4:40 in Leicester Square and Seven Days in Brunswick Square at 6:30. How about making a whole day of it? Turn up at the Korean Cultural Centre earlier in the day and browse the DVD / CD library and … [Read More]
Recommended K-film viewing this weekend
This Friday’s screening at the KCC is the Jeong Brothers’ Epitaph (2007). Synopsis as follows: “In a modern hospital in 1941, doctors witness weird events and learn DEATH is the sole healer.” In 1979, Dr. PARK receives an old photo album from his twenties in 1941 when mysterious things befell him and his colleagues. PARK … [Read More]
Exhibition visit: Free Words at Mayfair Public Library
When I went to the Free Words exhibition at Mayfair Public Library it was a grey Friday evening, and consequently did not see the works at their best. It was the last day of the main show, and the artwork seemed to have been forgotten in a rather drab-feeling, unloved public-sector space on the top … [Read More]
Another tweak
So soon after the release of v4, here’s 4.1. My brain has been unable to stop fretting over getting better navigability on this site, including encouraging people to read more than the one article they land on when they google-search for a pic of Super Junior. First came the related post list a few days … [Read More]
Welcome to LKL v4
It may not look like a big change, but it’s been exercising my mind for a few weeks. The underlying change is an upgrade of my blog templates to take advantage of all the latest functionality of WP2.6. LKL’s look and feel is based on Scott Wallick’s plaintxt templates. Scott faithfully upgrades his templates to … [Read More]
Korean bookshop in New Malden
Thanks to David Gomez for writing in with an answer to a question which lots of people have asked: where to buy Korean books in London. Not books about Korea, not books about how to learn Korean, but books written in Korean. My standard answer is that I haven’t the foggiest idea, but that if … [Read More]
Honorifics at the KCC
Lucien Brown has been leading the beginners’ Korean Language class at the KCC with infinite patience and good humour for the past eight weeks. Some of us are still struggling with telling the time in Korean but we still come back for more. We’ll be getting an extra dose of our favourite 선생님 next week: … [Read More]