London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

Jasmine Choi plays Yiruma

A pretty tune by Korean crossover composer Yiruma (이루마), arranged for flute and piano by Hugh Sung. It comes from Jasmine Choi’s album of Claude Bolling’s Suite for Flute and Jazz Trio: The whole CD is available on iTunes | Amazon.com [Read More]

DJ Joonki’s K-pop mash-up

For those of you who couldn’t make it to the opening event of the Korean Artists Association residency on 12 August, here’s the DJ set from Joonki, via his YouTube channel. He was only alotted 5 minutes, but did pretty well to cover 30 years of K-pop. I’d like to hear something a bit longer … [Read More]

A video of Korean ceramic decorative techniques

I just tripped over this lovely video on Facebook. It would be nice to have something a bit longer, showing a comprehensive range of all the various decorative techniques used in Korean ceramics. But this is a great sampler, from Icheon Ceramics: Published on Oct 23, 2013 The exhibit “Icheon: Reviving the Korean Ceramic Tradition” … [Read More]

A trio of Pyongyang time lapse videos

A video sponsored by Koryo Tours has had the Guardian descending to the level of Buzzfeed with the following clickbait headline: Timelapse video offers unique insight into North Korea’s capital city. Needless to say, Buzzfeed calls it “mind-blowing”. As you can see from the above, it’s a very slick production, from “city-­branding pioneer JT Singh … [Read More]

Dance videos, tasteless films and hair promotions – different ways to annoy the DPRK authorities

It’s not just the Americans and the Brits who annoy the North Korean establishment with their irreverant lèse-majesté. Now the Chinese are doing it too. So far the video has been left online: And a reminder of the two other things that recently got the DPRK establishment annoyed: an upcoming American comedy film, and a … [Read More]

“Jazz” in the DPRK: Autumn Whispers and the forbidden fruit of Richard Clayderman

I’ve just finished reading Jang Jin-sung’s memoir, Dear Leader. It’s a real page-turner that will appeal to many types of readers, including people who like a good adventure story (the passages describing Jang’s evasion of Chinese and North Korean security forces once he has fled from the North Korean capital are genuinely exciting) and of … [Read More]