In the past, the KCC has held an open call for UK-based artists to submit proposals which have been subject to a judging process: successful artists got to participate in a group show at the KCCUK. This year, the KCCUK is collaborating with their colleagues in Germany. Six artists will be selected, for a group […]
Place: Elsewhere
Exhibition visit: Lee Young-hee’s Stuff of Dreams, at the Guimet
With more time being spent at home, LKL has a bit of time to catch up on the writing backlog. Here’s a visit we made to Paris at the beginning of March, a couple of days before the exhibition closed. In fact, looking back, it was the last Korean cultural event we enjoyed prior to […]
Whose Comfort? – book launch at the KCC
Friday 21 February 2020, 6.30 pm to 8.30 pm Korean Cultural Centre UK | Grand Buildings | 1-3 Strand | London WC2N 5B Admission free | Register via Google Docs Join World Scientific Publishing at the Korean Cultural Centre UK to celebrate the launch of Whose Comfort? The issue of sexual violence against civilian ‘comfort […]
Lee Young-hee’s Stuff of Dreams, at the Guimet
A day trip away on the Eurostar is an exciting exhibition featuring the work of fashion designer Lee Young-hee (1936-2018), pioneer of the contemporary hanbok. The following text is a slightly edited Google translation of the official notice on the Guimet website. Lee Young-hee’s Stuff of Dreams Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet | […]
SOAS seminar: China and the two Koreas – What next?
Monday 14 October 2019, 5:00 – 6:30 pm SOAS | College Buildings | Russell Square. Room: Djam Lecture Theatre (DLT) This event is open to the public and free to attend, however registration is required Abstract ‘Engagement’ of a kind may have replaced ‘fire and fury’ on the Korean Peninsula after Kim Jong-un met with […]
Former UK Home Secretary to unveil statue commemorating Vietnamese victims
In an article on Politics Home, former UK Home Secretary Jack Straw writes about South Korea’s need to investigate rape and other atrocities inflicted by South Korean soldiers upon women during the Vietnam War. Despite Korea’s history of Japanese military sexual slavery, successive South Korean governments have refused to investigate their own military’s crimes against […]
Book review: Mary Lynn Bracht — White Chrysanthemum
Mary Lynn Bracht: White Chrysanthemum Penguin Random House 2018, 320pp White Chrysanthemum, the debut novel from Mary Lynn Bracht, tells the story of two sisters, brought up on Jeju Island, who were tragically separated in the last years of the Second World War. The elder sister, Hana, is abducted into sexual slavery by a Japanese […]
SOAS conference: Senses and the Meanings of Modernity in East Asia, 1890–1945
A conference at SOAS with some Korean interest, including sessions on the Local Colour Movement and on Korean film and food diplomacy: The Senses and the Meanings of Modernity in East Asia, 1890–1945 An exploratory workshop 18 June 2018, room S116 (Senate House), SOAS, University of London Reflecting recent shifts towards the study of embodied […]
Book Review: Ahn Jung-hyo – White Badge
Ahn Jung-hyo: White Badge Soho Press, NY, 1989, 337pp Originally published as 하얀전쟁, 1983 Translated by the author If I saw Jeong Ji-young’s White Badge (1992) when it screened in London eight years ago, I do not remember it. I cannot imagine having a similar lapse of memory concerning Ahn Jung-hyo’s Vietnam war novel on […]
Screening: White Badge + Ahn Jung-hyo Q+A
Jeong Ji-yeong’s adaptation of Ahn Jung-hyo’s Vietnam War novel is the third in the KCCUK’s Korean Novels on Screen season of screenings. Director Jeong came to London back in 2010 to talk about this movie. LKL’s write-up can be found here. White Badge (하얀전쟁) Director: Chung Ji-young (1992, 124 mins) Cast: Ahn Sung-ki, Lee Gyoung-young, […]
Japan Society talk: Escaping to North Korea – with Markus Bell
Apologies for the late notice of tomorrow’s talk organised by the Japan Society, which may by now be fully subscribed. The speaker gave a fascinating talk at SOAS on broadly the same subject a few months ago, so I’d have high hopes of this one too. Escaping to North Korea – with Markus Bell 19 […]
SOAS conference: Colonialism and its Reverberations
A good half-day conference coming at the beginning of February. Check the event’s Facebook page or the SOAS website for updates. Colonialism and its Reverberations: ‘Comfort Women’ and Historical Revisionism in Korea and Japan Professor Yonson Ahn (University of Frankfurt), Professor Vladimir Tikhonov (University of Oslo), Professor Chong Yeonghwan (Meiji Gakuin University) 3 February 2018, […]
Book review: Frontier Contact Between Chosŏn Korea and Tokugawa Japan
James B. Lewis: Frontier Contact Between Chosŏn Korea and Tokugawa Japan Routledge, 2003, 340pp What a relief to return to some non-fiction. And although at LKL we are wholly unqualified to review academic works, we don’t mind saying why we it is that we like a particular book. Frontier Contact paints a fascinating picture of […]
Film review: The Battleship Island
Synopsis Some nasty Japanese are being beastly to the Korean forced labourers in an offshore Japanese coal mine as the Second World War comes to a close. And one or two Koreans aren’t exactly being that patriotic either. In the middle of it all is a weak, venal Korean who is among the labourers with […]
Visiting Korean students protest Comfort Woman issue
Great to see so many young people from South Korea raising awareness of the ‘comfort women’ issue in London today, performing and protesting at the Japanese embassy and Trafalgar Square.
Looking back at 2015: DPRK and regional news
In our third review of 2015, we look at some of the North Korea related news, and stories which put the peninsula in a wider East Asian context. DPRK Human rights and defectors Shin Dong-hyuk, the most prominent campaigner among the defector community, admitted that some of his testimony (eg, in Escape from Camp 14) […]