(Flamingo, 1997) Absorbing and very moving book in which the narrator pursues her family history through turbulent twentieth-century Korea. Quite a good introduction to modern Korean history if you’ve never read a history book, but this novel’s much more than that. Links: Buy at Amazon.co.uk [Read More]
Category: Formats (page 88)
How to boost your stock price
Get Yonsama to buy some shares. Though I guess this would only work with Korean small-cap media stocks: [Ottowintech]’s share price, which stood at W12,700 on March 27 right before resuming stock transactions, quadrupled in less than 10 days, netting Bae, who invested a total of W9 billion in the company, more than 10 times … [Read More]
Hyori withdraws “plagiarism” single
Lee Hyori has decided that discretion is the better part of valour, and has withdrawn performances of her single Get Ya!, from her album Dark Angel, which allegedly steals from Britney Spears’s Do Somethin’. [Read More]
Korean protests baffle Belgians
I can’t put it better than the Chosun Ilbo’s own headline. One of the more peculiar stories. In fact today’s Chosun is packed with entertaining stories: Britney Spears’s songwriters accuse Lee Hyo-lee of plagiarism; and a sex survey by pharmaceutical company Bayer finds Korean men the most selfish in bed. [Read More]
Koreans and sport #2
Korea has now crashed out of that international baseball tournament, after a 6-0 whitewash at the hands of Japan [Read More]
New Jeon Ji-hyun vehicle crashes
OK, so it’s not a complete box office turkey, but after one week at the top of the charts, it’s now down to number 4 and predicted to head south quickly. The vehicle, a film entitled Daisy, is a blatantly commercial effort to cash in on the marketability of the My Sassy Girl star outside … [Read More]
BoA not quite top of the world pops
Again, I’m a little slow on the uptake, but megastar BoA managed to make it to number 2 in the worldwide pop charts last week with her new Japanese release “Outgrow”. Others are better qualified than me to comment on the workings of the global pop music industry, but the charts seem to be dominated … [Read More]
Life in the concentration camp – in a musical
I was a bit slow in spotting this, but for politically controversial stage shows, Yoduk Story must take some beating – a musical about human rights abuses in one of North Korea’s concentration camps, written, directed and acted by defectors. See article in the Chosun Ilbo. Other Links: Musical brings Korean horrors home, Charles Scanlon, … [Read More]
Kim Ki-duk mistaken for a tramp
A nice gossipy item from the Chosun Ilbo: Kim [Ki-duk] went to Jungbu Police Station in Seoul to obtain a permit to manufacture a model gun for his new film. But his seedy appearance inspired little confidence, and when he kept repeating the phrase, “The leading man’s gun, the leading man’s gun,” police decided he … [Read More]
62% of Koreans can’t use chopsticks
According to the Chosun Ilbo, “only 38 percent of [Korean] adults, split almost evenly between male and female, [are] able to use chopsticks in the correct manner.” The problem could threaten Korea’s future intellectual prowess. Professor Kim Phil-soo at Daelim College who conducted a survey of 252 Korean adults said: “chopsticks require a person to … [Read More]