• For the Korea JoongAng Daily’s 13-year anniversary issue — and to mark the 60-year anniversary of the end of the Korean War — I wrote an overview of the history of Korean movies. You probably know the broad strokes of this story already … However, I was lucky enough to get some wonderful details from actor Ahn Sung-ki, producer Jonathan Kim, and the big boss of CJ Entertainment Miky Lee. Huge thanks to all of them for taking the time to talk to me. (Korea JoongAng Daily)
  • Interesting article on Lee Shin-young, who is reportedly the first female horse trainer in Asia. (Korea JoongAng Daily)
  • Unfortunately, one big detail in the previous story was wrong — Lee Shin-young was not Korea’s first female jockey. That honor goes to Lee Ok Rae, who rode back in 1975 (Horse Racing in Korea blog)
  • Google vs. Korean government over future of Internet freedom in Korea (New York Times)
  • Something funny about Korea complaining about Chinese smokers. (Korea JoongAng Daily)
  • Hard to believe, but I can still remember a time when smoking was allowed on airplanes on domestic flights in North America. But one by one, countries are slowly turning against the (smelly) (and sublime) habit.
  • Today, the International Herald Tribune is no more. It rebrands as the International New York Times. INYT? Doesn’t exactly scan well, does it? As my first article for the IHT was nearly 10 years ago, I’m a bit  sad about the change. For me, when I think of the Herald Tribune, I am always reminded of that scene from Breathless, when we first meet the Jean Seberg character: