London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

November events 2020

November activities
Clockwise from top left: Im Kwon-taek’s Daughter of Fire – part of the LKFF’s strand of shaman films | Michael Gibb’s new book, just out | Sinnoi, performing at K-music 2020 | The Kimjang Project

As we head back into lock-down, there’s only a couple of days left in November to visit the exhibitions. And we commiserate with the KCCUK and LEAFF organisers, who have worked so hard to find venues for screenings and live music only to find that the pandemic has other ideas.

Books and Talks

Thank heavens for books, eh? I’m not sure what we’d be doing without them right now.

  • The KCC’s November literature talk discusses Lee Hyemi’s Unexpected Vanilla – 25 November.
  • Keep your eyes on the RASKB and Korea Society web pages for interesting talks.
  • Look out for various talks taking place as part of the London Korean Film Festival
  • The LKL Korea Book Database is complete enough – that’s 99% complete in respect of post-1900 prose literature in translation – to plug it a little bit. Use it to track down publications that contain texts by your favourite authors. It’s already got a fair amount of non-fiction loaded up too, and we’ll round it out with more titles over the coming weeks to provide a core generalist reading list in the main subject areas in the site’s remit.
  • The database includes a list of upcoming publications and recent publications (both fiction and non-fiction). If you find it useful, let me know what I’ve missed. I can only load up what I know about, and there’s no real way of finding out unless people tell me. Or luck.
  • Highlighted title this month is Michael Gibb’s A Korean Odyssey (just published). We loved his Slow Walk Through Jeong-dong and hope his tour around Korea’s many islands, using public transport, will be the perfect excape from the new lock-down.

Food and Festivals

  • Expect something from the Kimjang Project on Saturday 21 November – probably online-only in the circumstances. Maybe some of you will have received their recipe book recently

Exhibitions

Screenings

  • The London Korean Film Festival has a wealth of online screenings for the duration, plus at least one real-world screening occurring before lockdown
  • The London East Asia Film Festival, who had lined up Beasts Clawing at Straws for their opening gala in Leicester Square, have pushed the festival back to December. The opening screening will now be 10 December.
  • Sadly, if you were looking forward to the theatrical release of zombie actioner Peninsula (review here), I guess you’re going to be disappointed as the release is currently scheduled for the day after the lockdown starts.

Music and Performance

  • The K-Music festival has a wealth of high-quality online concerts that will be available online for a limited period. The first one to go online – Jambinai – is in my view an improvement on a live gig as you can actually listen without damaging your eardrums. There’s some helpful introductory subtitles providing a little information about the tracks, too.
  • Look out for Ahn Eun-me talking about her Dancing Grandmothers project as part of Dance Umbrella, 25 November

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