Memo to SK Telecom.
First ==> 1st
Eleventh ==> 11th
Nevertheless, SK Telecom has created a new Internet mall, called “11st“.
Yeah, yeah… they mean “11th Street.” But I still find it funny.
Category: Random Stuff (Page 5 of 7)
I just realized how May is shaping up to be a rather busy season for official events in Seoul (at least for event related to the kind of work I do).
In early May, we have the SEOUL DIGITAL FORUM, which always attracts a lot of big names. This year, Sumner Redstone is going to be speaking, along with a host of other important people. It is an odd event, but there are usually 2-3 forums each year that I find useful to attend.
The follow week is going to be a big one for books in Korea. May 14-17 is this year’s Seoul International Book Fair. But even bigger than that is May 12-15, when Korea’s plays host to this year’s annual congress for the International Publishers Association.
Before the Internet age and Starcraft descended upon us, Koreans were known as voracious readers. Today… not so much. But it looks like it could be an interesting event, at least as far as these stuffy industry events go.
* * *
Funny story from the Seoul Digital Forum of two or three years ago. I attended the big opening dinner thing and ended up sitting at a table right beside the head table. At the head table was one of the major speakers, Lee Soo-man, the founder and head of SM Entertainment, of course. Sitting with Lee was Boa, the singing star (I think she might have performed a song or two).
As you would expect with this kind of event, the hall was filled with dark suited officials… people rather proud of themselves for being so important and influential, most of whom were in their 40s and 50s. Not exactly SM Entertainment’s prime demographic, right?
Well, age and dignity be damned, because the important, dark-suited bigwigs were falling all over themselves to get autographs from Boa. In the middle of some important speech by some important dude, these people would half-crouch (as if hiding, but not really), weave their way through the maze of circular tables, and make their way to Boa’s table, where they would put some ratty piece of paper in front of Boa to be signed. Quite humorous.
Okay, this has nothing to do with Korean entertainment, but I found it wildly entertaining. GAPMINDER is a great website about world health and economics, with amazing tools for graphically displaying those statistics.
For example, here is a graph comparing North Korean and South Korean incomes-per-person and life expectancy from 1960 to the present.
It is a big database so it might take a couple of minutes to load, but it is pretty cool stuff. Once it is loaded, you can look at so many things:
– Comparing the percentage of people in Korea living in cities to income since 1960 here.
– South Korea’s Internet users per 100 people since 1990 here
So I got the chance to see Hong Sang-soo’s latest film NIGHT & DAY a few days ago. The film officially makes its world premier on Feb. 12 at the Berlin International Film Festival, but, well, there are ways…
Of course, I am sworn to secrecy about the film. But I can say what the press kits talk about — it is the story of a middle-aged artist who flees to Paris after smoking a little pot in Korea. While in Paris he meets an ex-girlfriend, makes a new girlfriend, and smokes and drinks a lot.
It was Hong’s longest movie so far, clocking in at 144 minutes, but it felt quite brisk and I never felt bored. Perhaps not as fun as WOMAN ON THE BEACH, but most worthwhile. I will try to write more about it after its official premier in 10 days.
1. A Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors
2. Woman on the Beach
3. Night and Day
4. Turning Gate
5. The Day a Pig Fell in the Well
6. The Power of Kangwon Province
7. Woman Is the Future of Man
8. Conte du Cinema
I would not put too much stock in that list, though. Nos. 1 and 8 are fairly entrenched, but the rest of the list fluctuates a lot day by day.
Like Popular Gusts, I have long considered Sanullim’s second album to be one of my favorites. When you have had a couple of adult beverages too many and you are at some old bar at 2 or 3 in the morning, and that great bass line from Nae Maeum-ae Judan-eul Kkalgo comes on the bar’s stereo, it is one of my favorite feelings. I am just happy I was able to catch the band live in concert at their 30th anniversary show a couple of years ago.
What makes it even better for me is that when I was breaking into journalism a few years ago, I was working at the Joongang Daily under Hal Piper, a first-rate reporter and editor who spent most of his career at the Baltimore Sun.
Season five has been especially controversial to some (journalists, mostly) because of its portrayal of cutbacks and the modern evolution of the news room. Some people think that David Simon, the show’s creator and veteran crime reporter for The Sun, has been unduly harsh and petty about the leadership at The Sun when he was there. Others think he was spot on. There have been some great debates.
As for Mr. Piper, he has not seen THE WIRE, but this is what he had to say about The Sun and Mr. Simon and the others:
Yes, I knew Simon (not well), Carroll and Marimow. The latter two were my bosses in my last few years at the Sun, and I respected them a lot. I have seen what Simon says, but I think Carroll and Marimow reversed a prior decline in the quality of the Sun. When I left it in 2001 I thought it was a better paper than it had been in 10 or 15 years. Now that I am back in Baltimore, and reading the Sun again, I think it is a worse paper than I can remember in my lifetime. So, acknowledging Simon’s talent — he really was a great police reporter — I wouldn’t trust his evaluation of the paper as a whole. That said, I am dying to see the show. Some of my friends who are no longer with the paper have bit roles as reporters.
He goes on to say: “The issue, it seems to me, is that management has made a strategic decision in favor of mediocrity (closing foreign bureaus, using mostly wire stuff for travel and book reviews, etc.).” Ouch.
At any rate, you can read Simon’s point of view about the series and Baltimore and more in this fine story.
Thus an eight-volume CD collection named “The New Original Hit Pops” contains a hologram mark of the Korea Music Copyright Association. But the certificate serial number C6-00028279 on the sticker was given to a soap opera starring Choi Ji-woo, the association said.
(How is selling on the subways legal anyhow? Shouldn’t those “vendors” all get the boot and fined for selling things without a permit? Seems like an easy way to end the problem and put a bit of money into the city’s coffers.)
Actually, I really misjudged the amount of space they had available, and originally I wrote way too much. Cutting was probably for the best, though. I can usually use some tightening up. In case anyone cares, here is what I wrote:
By Mark Russell
Of all the different aspects of the entertainment industry, none have had a deeper and yet more complex relationship with globalization than the movies.
The importance of the outside world in stimulating the creative boom of the 1990s is well known and well documented. Many of the great strides made in Korean movies, whether on the artistic side or the financing, came from innovators who were educated abroad for at least a few years – for example, Lee Mie-kyung and CJ Entertainment, director Kwak Kyung-taek (“Friend”), and Ryu Seong-hee, the art designer for such movies as “The Host” and “Hansel & Gretel.”
In fact, the global film market has had an important role in Korea pretty much since the film industry started here. In the 1920s and 30s, Korea was the most lucrative movie market in Asia for Hollywood, and all the major studios (Universal, Paramount, United Artists, MGM, RKO) had offices here. After the Korean War, too, international films flourished for a time.
Even the movie market opening to foreign direct distributors in the mid-1980s, generally considered an event that nearly killed the local movie business, in many ways was good for Korean movies. For example, as the Hollywood studios fought for access to the Korean market, they also fought against the heavy censorship regulations that once stifled domestic creativity.
These days, it feels like those lessons have been forgotten. Foreign movies are seen by some as a threat to the local industry, despite the huge growth in Korea’s movie exports over the past decade and despite Korean movies far outpacing their foreign competitors at the box office. The screen quota remains another major hot-button issue. And I even hear about Korean actors losing roles in major international movies because their managers are not comfortable with English or working outside of Korea.
The trouble is, globalization is always a two-way street, and anytime you cut yourself off from the world, you are cutting yourself off from new ideas, innovation, and creativity.
The Seo Taiji boom in music has long since turned stagnant, a neverending recycling of the same teen pop ideas.
Korean television dramas, once seen as a fresh, lively alternative around Asia, have quickly lost their freshness, and with that they are losing their audiences.
And the movie business – arguably the most innovative and impressive of Korea’s entertainment industries – is threatening to fade, declining into mainstream mush and a handful of innovative directors.
Strangely, despite Korea’s amazing shift into becoming an online information society, it has defied one of the most basic assumptions of what the information age means – Korea has not grown more diverse, in many ways it has grown less so.
Many analysts and writers have long said that as a society moves into the information age, choice will naturally grow as people can find easily anything they like and producers lose their control.
But the movie industry in 2007 produced far fewer interesting, challenging and bizarre movies than it did in 1997. Korea’s films are usually very good looking and slick, and each year usually brings a few big-budget ambitious epics. Creatively, however, not a lot is happening these days.
“The Korean Wave” was an impressive achievement. It brought international level production, distribution and related skills that revolutionized the entertainment industries and made Korea into an example for much of Asia.
Clearly another wave is now needed, one that focuses on creativity, if Korea is to continue to be a major cultural force in the future. A handful of star directors is not enough. Korea needs to systematically put creativity into the movie development process. Movie companies, particularly the largest ones that dominate so much of the business, need to carve out niches where experimental and promising talents can be nurtured and encouraged to develop.
It is a lesson that many of Korea’s automobile and electronics companies have already learned, and that more of the Korean economy will need to learn in the future. It is not enough to copy on the cheap, true value comes from innovation. And if you want to compete on the world stage, your products must be innovative at world class levels.
Most notable was ORIENTAL LUCY (sorry, I only have these crappy cell phone pics). Each song was quite different, ranging from a retro-70s-rock sound to a bizarre cover of a trot classic that sounded like something by SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES. (They have a Cyworld page here, but it is one of those annoying ones you need to sign into to use, so it is pretty much useless for most people.)
Another very good band was FRENZY, a four-man instrumental shoe-gazing band that sounded a bit like classic Echo and the Bunnymen (my friend’s assessment).
The other band was JERANG, perhaps not as good, but still interesting in their own way. A bit of an early-Radiohead, whiny sound, but not bad. I believe JERANG won the most recent Korea national high school talent competition. They four guys in the band are just 20 (Korean age, I would imagine, so 19 in the rest of the world), so they have some time to improve. But a good beginning.
Totally love it. Season 5 is, somehow, even more bleak than the first four seasons. But despite the depressing edge to things, it is still the best show on television, by far. Great writing, solid insights and, despite the dark cynicism, more than a few funny moments.
In case you have not heard, THE WIRE season 5 turns an eye to the media, in particular to modern newspapers, with all the brutal insight the show has used to examine city politics, the war on drugs, schools and all the rest.
Some early reviews have criticized the shows creator for having an exaggerated or cartoon-like perspective on the troubles facing the modern newspaper, but I think those criticisms are off-base. Sure it is not 100-percent correct, but THE WIRE is a fictional, entertainment program, not a documentary. I am guessing its view of the newsroom is as accurate as all the other institutions it has skewered over the years (which is to say quite accurate, but very much fiction).
If you are in Korea, you can still track down season 1 of THE WIRE here and there, for just 20,000 won or so. Totally worth it. Or you can order seasons 1-4 from Amazon.com.
I usually try not to just link to other people’s stories when I do not have much of my own to add, but there were a bunch of interesting articles in today’s Chosun Ilbo. And they all made the English edition, so that is even more convenient.
The article lists the usual litany of social faux-pas, like bringing very young children to classical music concerts (or anywhere, in my humble opinion), snoring at the movies, not turning off cell phones at the movies, talking on cell phones at the movies, taking endless pictures of golfers with cell phones at tournaments (I seem to notice a theme to theme complaints…). But in addition to just complaining, it added a little analysis toward the end:
The lack of manners is probably due to the small number of concert-goers here, most of whom have little education in the etiquette. According to a 2006 survey on Koreans’ culture and art-related activities, only 6.8 went to museums and 3.6 percent to classical concerts.
Really? Do more Chicagoans or Torontonians go to classical concerts? I guess it depends if we are talking about “going in a year” or “going ever in their lifetimes.” But I think the article finally got at a more interesting, local aspect of the problem here:
Another big problem is the mass giveaway of concert tickets.
Bingo. The whole live music scene here (classical and contemporary) has some rather odd economics. People love to complain that shows are “too expensive,” but somehow corporations have the money to sponsor these shows and then give away scads of tickets to anyone and everyone.
Although the article cited a lot of problematic behaviours, personally my biggest complaint about audiences here is the applauding of utter crap. It’s like a competition to see who can shout encore first and loudest. And the multiple curtain calls to some off-key warbler at the opera or wherever is just plain annoying. I prefer the Italian example, where people feel free to boo a lousy performance, like it were a sporting event.
I think that ties into the free tickets… people are going who are not really fans of the performance and who do not know much about it, and are instead just acting out some misconceived idea of what a classical concert should be.
Some of Kim’s other photos are currently on display at the Daelim Contemporary Art Museum in Seoul, in an exhibit called BODY (or mom, in Korean). As Kim says in the article:
I wanted to get attention from all sectors of society; that was the main objective of my exhibition. But all I got was the realization that our reality does not tolerate diversity. We had a fine response from the readers of Vogue magazine. But what happens to the model? She’s criticized and disciplined. Those are in a way the different faces of our society.
It looks like a good show. You should check it out if you get the chance.
Tuesday – 20.4
Wednesday – 26.9
Thursday – 26.9
In Seoul, ratings rose slightly from Wednesday to Thursday, too. Too early to know if it will be a moderate hit or a big hit (or even if people will get bored and lose interest), but it is definitely a solid start.
(Actually, the Korean missionary schtick was the weakest part of this week’s New Rules, but I still think it is worth a listen).
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – 16%
Alexander – 16%
Hannibal Rising – 15%
Underdog – 13%
Garfield – 13%
Dungeons & Dragons – 11%
Catwoman – 10%
Elektra – 10%
Battlefield Earth – 3%
Half Past Dead – 2%
So I guess Shim Hyung-rae really is a Hollywood-quality director.
UPDATE: Crap. D-WAR is actually making a little money. $1.5 million on Friday alone. Looks like it is a lock to become the highest grossing Korean film in the United States (not hard, since the previous record holder, SPRING SUMMER FALL WINTER… AND SPRING only had about $2.3 million).
While posting my previous story about the fake degree scandal, I suddenly realized that KOREA POP WARS is exactly one year old. That is kind of nifty. The first article I wrote is here. Kind of amusing that it was about a Japanese band, but such are the gentle ironies of life.
For the first couple of months, almost no one knew about KOREA POP WARS, with just a couple of visitors a day. Then in November, Darcy Paquet mentioned the blog over at KOREANFILM.ORG, and that gave me a little bump… to around a dozen or two visitors a day. Things changed pretty radically in early December when I posted the first online review of Park Chan-wook’s I’M A CYBORG, BUT THAT’S OK. That grouchy little review got linked and quickly my hits spiked into the hundreds. Things died off, but then spiked again for my even grouchier RESTLESS review (both those articles still regularly show up in my Google search results).
Feb. 1 was my biggest day ever, thanks to a prominent endorsement at THE MARMOT’S HOLE. I appreciated his enthusiasm, but honestly I would not consider this blog a “must read” by any stretch of the imagination.
All told, KPW’s first year, I wrote 187 articled (about one every other day, on average), and received 45,992 page loads and 35,834 unique visitors. Not exactly DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD DAILY, but not bad, I guess, considering the subject matter.
Certainly the blog has unfolded differently than I thought it would. At first, I thought I might do something anonymous and full of all the fun gossip and stories I come across in my work. But I quickly realized that if I wrote the really good stuff, it would be rather obvious who I was, and people would stop talking to me about the good stuff.
Then I thought I might be publishing extracts from my book… try to get a little feedback from people as I cranked the thing out… kind of like Chris Anderson’s THE LONG TAIL. But that did not work out, either. For one, my writing process did not work like Anderson’s, and did not lend itself to excerpting.
For a while, I thought about translating the tabloids and sports newspapers, but there are already plenty of people doing that (Shenyue, Pop Seoul, etc.) … and besides, those papers’ considerable inaccuracy would have driven me bonkers quickly.
So, in the end, what you see before you is what I did. Not quite sure how I got here or where this little project will continue to go. But for now I am here. Thanks for reading.
There has been much ink spilled over the last couple of months in Korea over the fake degree scandal, with dozens of leading figures and celebrities caught having lied about their university education and other qualifications. Good overview of the story at the IHT here (and at the New York Times, too, but the IHT links do not expire after a week).
I find this whole scandal to be particularly amusing because years ago I was actually on the receiving end of the exact opposite situation, where I was denied a job because the prospective employer did not believe my credentials were real (even though, I assure you, they are).
Many years ago, before this journalism thing was working for me, I applied for a teaching position at a university outside of Seoul, and I needed a Master’s Degree for the position. Which I have. But the strange thing is, I earned my Master’s while I was still an undergraduate. It is called “submatriculating,” which is starting work on graduate school while still an undergraduate. Not all universities allow this, but mine did, and through a quirk of scheduling and my idiosyncratic interests, I ended up taking a lot of graduate level classes in my junior and senior years. End result was that I received my BA and MA at the same time.
But the school to which I was applying had not heard of submatriculating and they told me they did not believe I could really have earned both degrees at the same time. This was despite my having original transcripts and diplomas for both degrees. They had not heard of this before, therefore I was lying. They did not bother calling my university to check out my degrees.
Which is, I suppose, how my story intersects with all the fake degree stories in the news now — not checking. Anyhow, I thought it was kind of an interesting flipside to the current scandals.
Personally, I am pretty ambivalent about the whole idea of “qualifications” in the arts and writing. I never took a journalism course in my life, but I seem to have figured out how it works okay (thanks to a lot of help from some very kind journalists and editors). And the world if full of MFA graduates who make terrible art. When I go to the doctor, I want someone who is qualified. When I get legal advice, I want someone who is bar certified. But for writing, art, criticism? Screw it, I want someone creative, intriguing and who can do a good job.
The interesting follow-up story on the fake-degree scandal I would like to read is how good of a job did all those fakers do. What did people think of Shin Jeong-ah’s work as a curator/critic? Were Lee Chang-ha’s buildings well designed? Were they even structurally sound? Did the monk Jigwang have less enlightenment because he never really graduated from Seoul National University? Heck, he should have just claimed to have transcended transcripts and overcome the materialism of the degree.
Young-hee and the Pullocho
Young-hee stumbles into a magical world, where the fairy stories of her childhood are real and all the frustrations of her everyday life fade away — until her little brother is kidnapped by a goblin. The only way Young-hee can save him is by finding a magical plant called a pullocho, but little does she realize the fate of a whole world hangs in the balance.
On sale now at:
Amazon
Pop Goes Korea
Pop Goes Korea: Behind the Revolution in Movies, Music and Internet Culture (2nd edition) is the only English-language book to examine the whole of Korea's entertainment industry and how it became such a powerhouse over the past 20 years. With profiles of many of Korea's top stars (including Lee Byung-hun and Rain), Pop Goes Korea features chapters on movies, music, television, comic books, the Internet, and more.
On sale now at:
Amazon.com
Kobo eBooks
And hopefully more ebooks stores very soon.
The original edition of Pop Goes Korea is now out of print.
K-Pop Now!
K-Pop Now! takes a fun look at Korea’s high-energy pop music, and is written for its growing legions of fans. It features all the famous groups and singers, and takes an insider’s look at how they have made it to the top.
You can buy at:
Amazon.com
Chapters Indigo
Tuttle (my publisher)
Kyobo Books (in Korea)
Goodreads (not for buying, but still a good link)