Justina Jang of the Korean Cultural Promotion Agency, the organisers of the Dano Festival in Trafalgar Square, has kindly sent me some of the official photos of the event, which I have now uploaded to Flickr. Some good photos of the very entertaining Noridan (above), some great crowd scenes which really convey the atmosphere of … [Read More]
LKL articles by Philip Gowman (page 187)
Photos from this year’s Mudfest
I just found some great photos over on Flickr, courtesy of pwalks. Here’s a tiny taster, deliberately small so that you go visit the original yourself. Enjoy the full slideshow here. [Read More]
James Church: Hidden Moon
(Thomas Dunne Books, 2007) After A Corpse in the Koryo, the rip-roaring start to the Inspector O series, Hidden Moon comes as a bit of a disappointment. Maybe the freshness of the debut is a tough act to follow, but somehow the first time round Inspector O had more character. He’s still got his quirky … [Read More]
Boryeong Mud Festival 2008
The Festival is on around about now. The traffic on my two other posts about the festival is going through the roof. If any reader based in Korea is going along and feels so moved, feel free to send me in some photos and an article to tell everyone how great it is. I’m told … [Read More]
Jennifer Barclay featured on BBC Radio 4
LKL contributor Jennifer Barclay was on Sandi Toksvig’s Excess Baggage this morning, talking about kimchi, modern Korean history, and living and traveling in Korea. She was joined by Julian Appleby, who has recently returned from a stint of English language teaching there. As ever with these programmes, there was an ulterior motive involved: Jennifer’s book, … [Read More]
Lee Chang Dong featured at KCC
The theme for this month’s films at the KCC film club is Director Lee Chang Dong (right). A few weeks ago we had Im Sang-soo at the KCC talking about his “modern Korean history trilogy”; and the recent KOFIC book on Im says: Im Sang Soo is practically the only director now making films that … [Read More]
Impossible landscapes: two exhibitions by Lim Taek and Lee Sea-hyun
Recently in London we’ve seen two seemingly very different responses to traditional Korean and Chinese landscape painting. In March we had Lim Taek (임택) at I-MYU; just finished at Union we had Lee Sea-hyun (이세현). Both artists portray the familiar mountains, the occasional ancient pavilion dotting the landscape. But Lim’s mountains are simple blocks of … [Read More]
James Scarth Gale Translation Prize
The Centre for the Study of Korea (CSK) at the University of Toronto hosts the annual James Scarth Gale translation prize for non-fiction pieces of writing on Korea. The top prize is awarded a sum of $2,500. The objective of the prize is to promote, and make public, materials useful for teachers of undergraduate courses … [Read More]
The wait is over: Kim Ki-young on DVD
At least in part. No student of Korean film can call his or her education complete until they’ve seen some films by Kim Ki-Young. Until now, none of the films have been available on DVD. Alas, no Housemaid yet, but this new four-film boxed set includes Goryeojang (a.k.a. Burying Old Alive) (1963), Chungnyeo (a.k.a. The … [Read More]
Cho-in Theatre previews their return to Edinburgh
The Cho-in Theatre Company ended their two-week tour of England at the KCC on Monday. They’re now off to the Avignon Festival before returning for their now regular slot at the Edinburgh Fringe in August. Cho-in was founded in 2002 by Chung-euy Park. It has a wily eye on the international market, with its productions … [Read More]
July events 2008
Here’s what I know about so far: Festivals Dulsori participates in the Henley Festival, 9-13 July The Korean Food Festival takes place in New Malden, 12 July The Edinburgh Fringe starts, with lots of Korean participation, from 30 July The London Festival of Architecture continues until 20 July, with the Seoul: World Design City exhibition … [Read More]
Behind the scenes with the KAA
With photos by Seong Hee Jo When you turn up to a cultural event, it’s not always clear how much effort (and stress) has gone into organising it. But even with the most informal of events, there’s a great deal of work that has gone on in the preceding weeks. With the KAA event at … [Read More]
Kie-jo Sarsfield’s kimchi recipe
Cabbage Kimchi (Baechoo Kimchi) Ingredients: 2 Korean (Chinese) Cabbage Korean Mooli (White Radish) or Mooli Korean Watercress (not English watercress) Spring Onions Korean Chili Powder (100g) Salted Anchovy Sauce (half cup) Salted Baby Shrimps (2 tbs) Sugar (1 tsp) Finely Chopped or Crushed Garlic (5 tbs) Finely Chopped Ginger (3 tbs) Sea Salt (100g) Water … [Read More]
A border-crosser’s tale (a brief review of Hyejin Kim’s novel, Jia)
Hyejin Kim: Jia – a novel of North Korea Cleis Press, 2007 A novel about a talented dancer from the wrong family background who finds she needs to escape across the border to China. Those who have shown an interest in the reports from Amnesty International and Christian Solidarity Worldwide will not be surprised at … [Read More]
Bargains at SOAS publishing workshop
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, … [Read More]
Book review: A (minjung) History of Korea
Korea Historical Research Association (tr Joshua van Lieu) A History of Korea Saffron Books, 2005 It’s the 1980s. In Britain, leftist ideologues such as Red Robbo, Arthur Scargill and Derek Hatton had for years been railing against the government and the establishment using turgid language pilloried in satirical magazines, TV programmes and film (1). Anyone … [Read More]