KOREAN CERAMICS: ARTS AND TECHNIQUES TALK BY DAUPHINE SCALBERT Thursday 25 May 2006, 6.30-7.30pm at Asia House Dauphine Scalbert is a distinguished French potter who, having spent 6 years studying pottery and restoring antique ceramics in Korea, has Korean pots in her blood. Her copiously illustrated talk at Asia House last night was an interesting … [Read More]
Category: News and Current Affairs (page 46)
The world’s biggest bibimbap?
From the Chosun Ilbo: Students make Korean traditional dish bibimbap, an assortment of vegetables and rice, for 1,000 people during a spring festival at Ewha Womans University, which marked its 120th anniversary on Wednesday. [Read More]
Korean driving
Anyone who has been in a taxi in Busan will understand completely how Korea can be second in the OECD car accident rankings. (The mystery is: why only second, and how come there are any cars left on the road?) It must be something in the blood. Thanks to Tom Coyner for circulating this image … [Read More]
Two Koreas’ Top Brass Resort to Racist Mudslinging
A continuation of the ongoing theme on racial purity spurred by the visit of Korean-American Dan Hines to Korea. The more extreme position taken by the representative from the North chimes in well with this harrowing story in Time. The full story is in the Chosun Ilbo here. [Read More]
Samsung – am I missing something?
I’m puzzled by this item on the KBS site today Samsung to Pay W1 Tln in Inheritance Tax The Samsung Group will follow the example of the Shinsegae Group in paying a trillion won in inheritance tax. A Samsung source said Tuesday that Samsung will pay at an appropriate time around a trillion won in … [Read More]
Choi Min-sik to stage screen-quota protest at Cannes
Londoners looking forward to the delights of next week’s Korean film festival can be forgiven for overlooking that other festival which starts this week… in Cannes. The Korean film industry will take advantage of the event to publicise their opposition to the reduction in the screen quota. Here’s an article from today’s Korea Times: A … [Read More]
Capital markets consolidation
The Asia Times has a good article on the Capital Markets Consolidation Act. Thanks to the Flying Yangban for spotting it. [Read More]
Fill in the gaps. But first find them
I’ve just come across an interesting and well-written article on the KOFIC website which gives a very good review of the state of the Korean film industry in 2005. Here’s a link. The challenge with the article is that, at least on my browser, all the names of the films have been omitted. Sometimes, unless … [Read More]
Deja vu
Where do the Korean tax authorities get all their investigators from? They’ve just been throwing resources at trying to get money out of Lone Star, and now they’ve descended en masse on Carrefour. Is this a bit of anti-foreign politicking? Or are there genuine concerns that Carrefour have been trying to avoid tax? Heavy-handed investigations … [Read More]
Buying Vietnamese brides
The Chosun Ilbo article I spotted a week ago in this blog entry has created waves in diplomatic circles. As ever, the Marmot has his finger on the pulse. He has some great posts here and here. Follow his links at your leisure. [Read More]
Conspiracy theories
Tom Coyner has a mischievous speculation in one of his recent email news updates. I sometimes wonder if Pres Roh and PM Koizumi have these gentleman agreements, off the record of course, that allow each of them to act ridiculous so as to pander to local politics while knowing that the other politician is giving … [Read More]
London Korean Festival 2006 – we need news now!!
Tae-min, please, pretty please, post something about the festival on your website soon. Do you know how long it takes google find a new or updated page? Nor do I, but in theory I guess the minimum is more or less instantaneous, and the maximum is infinite — it just depends on where the googlebot’s … [Read More]
Think, Korea
I can’t help feeling that the Koreans have been taken for a bit of a ride with this Think Korea 2006 thing. I’d be interested to know for sure which government is investing more money in the programme, but I’d be willing to bet that it’s the Koreans. And let’s look at who’s getting what … [Read More]
Korean marketing skills
Korea may be the most wired nation on earth (or is it the second-most?), but Koreans in London have yet to embrace new technology. As noted in previous rants, there has been absolutely nothing official on the web which gives any decent information on the Korean concert in Croydon on 1 May. Well, yesterday I … [Read More]
A little gripe about CD packaging
I’m turning into one of those grumpy old men who gets annoyed by the stupidest of things. A very trivial rant today prompted by the latest delivery from YesAsia (I’m mugging up in preparation for the K-pop concert which I hope is happening on 24 May but which no-one apart from KBS seems to know … [Read More]
Mixed marriages
As mentioned a few days ago, the appearance of Hines Ward in Korea recently provoked a certain amount of debate. As it happens, statistics published in the Korea Times say that 14% of Korean marriages in 2005 were international, while attitudes are getting more positive. However, there is a darker side to this — with … [Read More]