I haven’t been so nervous in a long time. I got the call from the Korean Tourism Organisation this morning – “please come along to Team Korea House to do an interview on live radio this evening.” I thought it might be good training for an interview with Arirang’s Morning Call programme I might be doing next week, so I agreed. I hate hearing my voice, I hate being interviewed. But the one thing I hate most is being interviewed on camera. Thankfully, this was just radio, so I was hoping it might be just like a chat.
Team Korea House, at the Royal Thames Yachtclub (60 Knightsbridge) is one of the many country bases dotted around London supporting their national teams for the Olympics. And Monocle 24 Radio, the broadcasting arm of the monthly lifestyle magazine, is doing a series of evening live broadcasts from some of these national bases. Tomorrow is Russia. Today was Korea: the 2nd August edition of Midori House. The presenters had entered into the spirit of things by dressing in hanbok.
When I arrived this evening, Team Korea House was buzzing with about 50 K-pop fans who were there singing along to SNSD’s Twinkle, and providing plenty of background noise to the broadcast. Two of them did an awesome job talking about K-pop to the knowledgeable Monocle radio hosts. That made me nervous.
And then Sena Lee, LKL’s Traditional Korean Medicine specialist, did an equally fantastic job. A couple of days ago she administered acupuncture and hand acupressure therapy to legendary film director Im Kwon-taek. She was just expecting to do a repeat job on one of the Monocle presenters on-air. But as that wouldn’t have made for very good radio, she was sprung with an interview as well. And hearing her do so well made me all the more nervous for my own slot, particularly as I didn’t really know what they wanted to talk about. Fortunately hosts Rob Bound and Hugo McDonald made it feel reasonably easy.
You’ll also find KTO CEO Lee Charm on mic – getting across his message about 기, 흥 and 정 – plus a branding expert, one of the Korean Olympic liaison team and more.
The K-pop interview with (Emily Clayton and Kim Lindsay Nguyen) is at 18:00
Sena is at 22:30
Philip is at 52:00
Don’t be put off by all the advertisements for Thailand. The show has to be funded somehow.
Thanks to Monocle for a fun experience. I’ve almost forgiven you for not letting me tag along when you interviewed W & Whale and 3rd Line Butterfly in December 2010.
Links:
- Listen on the Monocle website here: Scroll left till you get to 2 August edition of Midori House
