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Customers sometimes wait up to two hours to get into one of these new technology-driven “booking bars” Photo credit: Korea Times
It looks like the trend of “booking” at bars, instead of nightclubs, is not going away any time soon.
We first reported on a bar in Korea that used tablet computers for speed dating last August but the Korea Times is reporting that more and more of these establishments are popping up all over Seoul.
While some of the bars are different, the basic premise is fairly simple. The establishments are set up more like a noraebang with private rooms. Patrons use a tablet computer to enter in their names, ages and number of people in the room. They then chat with other customers via tablet and if everything looks good, the groups meet up. (more…)
Time of My Life
A Korean punk band’s recent show in L.A. forces an old fan to reflect on the perils of fandom.
by EUGENE YI
I gave you the time of your life!” shouted the woman, from across the bar. I blanched. My girlfriend, by my side, looked on, bemused. I answered in the only appropriate manner.
“What?”
“I introduced you to Crying Nut! You love Crying Nut, right?” Oh right. She had gotten me into the Los Angeles date of this year’s Seoulsonic tour, headlined by Crying Nut, the seminal Korean punk band. Apparently, she was under the impression that the band was one of my all-time favorites, when really, the group was only important to me from May 2001, when I started listening to Korean punk because it was serviceable, to June 2002, when I stopped listening to Korean punk simply because it was serviceable.
But what a high it was! Crying Nut blasted open my notion of contemporary Korean music. They affirmed a punk Korean identity, and, by proxy, my own sense of identity. They did what good art does: make us less lonely. (more…)
Activist targeting U.S. schools, backed by big bucks
Reuters via Chicago Tribune
Rhee has emerged as the leader of an unlikely coalition of politicians, philanthropists, financiers and entrepreneurs who believe the nation’s $500 billion-a-year public education system needs a massive overhaul. She has vowed to raise $1 billion for her national advocacy group, StudentsFirst, and forever break the hold of teachers unions on education policy.
Michelle Rhee, ‘Parent Trigger’ Supporters Are Behind Huge L.A. Lawsuit to Strip Teachers of Job Protection
LA Weekly
California’s teachers have long been protected by a series of state laws — lobbied into existence by powerful teachers unions — that make the ineffective ones almost impossible to fire.
Now, in the largest state lawsuit of kind, a new organization called Students Matter, advised by the key players behind the controversial “Parent Trigger” law, alleges in L.A. Superior Court that strict tenure and seniority rules are ruining the K-12 system:
Q & A With Roy Choi: Slinging Tacos at Midnight, Calling Out Jamie Oliver + Choi’s Vegetable Moment
LA Weekly
Squid Ink: So I hear you’ve become a vegetarian?
Roy Choi: Let’s go back to my post, because it was really just a diary entry. I didn’t realize that people cared that much. I’ve been doing Kogi for three years now and a lot of shit has blown up — but food has been my voice. And people have been responding to it. I’ve just been myself. Everything you eat is everything I say and everything I am. So I feel like I’ve been talking to the public for a long time, even though I haven’t been using words. I didn’t know that it was going to get picked up, or that people even cared that much. But if you look at the post, I never used the word “vegetarian.” And I never said I was quitting cooking. And those seem to have been the two focal points.
North Korea’s Gulag: New evidence reveals a vast, cruel network of prison camps.
Wall Street Journal (subscription req’d)
A new report by South Korea’s National Human Rights Commission provides further vindication. It documents the suffering of Pyongyang’s roughly 200,000 political prisoners, held in a network of labor camps across the country.
Woman To Testify Against Cousin in Dentist Murder Trial
Patch (Glen Burnie, Md.)
In opening statements, prosecutors said Hickman will testify that she hired her cousin, 25-year-old Dante A. Jeter, and two other unnamed men to kill dentist Albert Ro to cover up the fact that she was embezzling funds from the business, WBAL reported.
Guilty plea entered in slot machine scheme
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Danny Ahn pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson to three charges: trafficking in, production and use of counterfeit access devices; fraudulent transactions with access devices; and conspiracy to commit access device fraud. Dawson set an Aug. 22 sentencing date.
‘Korean Zombie’ turns in Fight of the Year candidate at UFC on FUEL TV 3
Las Vegas Sun
In two UFC wins last year, “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung arguably pulled off both the Submission of the Year and the Knockout of the Year.
Jung may have proven victorious in 2012’s Fight of the Year Tuesday night in Fairfax, Va. Jung submitted heavily favored Dustin Poirier with a d’arce choke at 1:07 of the fourth round in the main event of UFC on FUEL TV 3.
Asian Art Museum exhibits ‘Phantoms of Asia’
San Francisco Examiner
Among the show’s most notable pieces is Choi Jeong Hwa’s large 30-by-24-foot Breathing Flower sculpture in the Civic Center Plaza; its motorized, bright-red fabric leaves simulate the movement of a live lotus, an important symbol in Asian cosmology. Growing in muddy water, the lotus rises and blooms during daytime, closes at night and rises again at dawn. Similarly, Choi’s lotus emerges from the cityscape, seemingly out of nowhere.
Korean-American TV Host Yul Kwon Charts Success in Autobiography
Chosun Ilbo
Yul Kwon’s autobiography charts the personal struggles and rise to fame of the 37-year-old Korean American who became the first Asian winner of CBS’s reality TV show “Survivor: Cook Islands” in 2006 before going on to become a TV host in the U.S.
TV host seeks bigger Asian presence in US media
The Korea Times
But Kwon, host of recent public television miniseries “America Revealed” which explored the infrastructure powering the world’s top economy – seems proudest of a more modest development: being seen as a regular guy.
“I got a lot of positive feedback,” the 37-year-old said of the show in an interview in Seoul, Tuesday. “What was great was that they didn’t mention that I was Korean or Asian. They just said ‘you’re a great host.’
Yul Kwon, From Bullying Target To Reality TV Star
NPR
Kwon’s early life involved a host of challenges. He was born in 1975 in New York to South Korean immigrants. He tells Tell Me More host Michel Martin he had a severe lisp as a kid, so many people assumed he was a foreigner who could not speak English properly. Kwon says he grew increasingly quiet to avoid being teased or beaten up.
Move of the Day: Choo leads off
ESPN
Choo was followed by second baseman Jason Kipnis in his usual slot, then Asdrubal Cabrera, then Carlos Santana. If that sounds to you like every good Indians batter, stacked up in a row, you’d be right. But with Choo’s .362 OBP (pre-game) up front, it gave manager Manny Acta some big-inning potential, and when Minnesota’s Jason Marquis got into trouble in the fifth, there was no easier out for him to get, and they cranked a trio of home runs before Ron Gardenhire could get him off the mound.
From Kimchi to Infinity
Hyphen Magazine
It all st arted with the kimchi dispute of 1996. Distressed by the increasing popularity of Japanese-made kimchi, the Korean government launched a protectionist campaign to create an international standard for authentic kimchi. Since then, South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak has waged an international campaign of “gastrodiplomacy,” with the aim of propelling Korean cuisine to epicurean heights around the world.
BMW Eyes Korea’s Fledgling Electric Car Market
The Wall Street Journal
BMW will be entering the local electric car market around the same time as Hyundai, which plans to sell an Elantra-sized compact electric car from 2014. Kia Motors aims to introduce an electric version of its Ray mini car in 2013, depending on Korea’s progress in building charging stations for electric vehicles.
K-Town Girl by dumbfoundead x Breezy Lovejoy
Channel APA
Rappers dumbfoundead x Breezy Lovejoy join forces once again for music video. This time it’s for the single “K-Town Girl”. The video takes you to some of the local Los Angeles K-Town establishments. From drinking to partying, it’s got it all for the K-Town girls. They come real with their description of the girls of K-Town. The late night partying affords them drink and dancing in the streets.
New World Bank chief is committed to the poor
Business Day (South Africa)
Jim Yong Kim, born in South Korea, has spent his career in healthcare in developing countries. His commitment to the poor cannot be doubted.
South Korean activists detained in China: Seoul
AFP via Yahoo News
Four South Korean activists have been detained in China since March on suspicion of spying after they interviewed North Korean refugees living in hiding there, according to an anti-Pyongyang group.
South Korea’s foreign ministry confirmed the four were arrested in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian on March 29 on charges of “endangering state security.”
Myanmar Vows to Cease Buying Weapons From North Korea
New York Times
South Korea has received assurances from Myanmar that it will no longer buy weapons from North Korea, an aide to President Lee Myung-bak said Tuesday.
N. Korea stops sending out GPS jamming signals against S. Korea: source
Yonhap News
North Korea appears to have stopped jamming satellite signals in an apparent attempt to disrupt air and maritime traffic navigation systems in parts of South Korea, a high-ranking government source in Seoul said Tuesday.
The North has been blamed for global positioning system (GPS) disruptions that affected hundreds of commercial flights and ships in and out of South Korea since April 28, although no damage was caused as all had backup navigational systems.
In China, English teaching is a whites-only club
MSNBC.com
Speak a little English and are willing to relocate? Well, you’re probably qualified to be an English-language instructor in China.
As long as you are white, that is.
New Claim in Gambling Monks Scandal
Wall Street Journal
An exiled monk who dropped a bombshell by releasing a video of eight senior monks smoking and drinking while playing poker in a hotel room detonated another explosive on Tuesday.
Seong-ho, whose real name is Jeong Han-young, told a morning radio show that two leaders at the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, including the head monk, went to a “room salon,” or late-night drinking bar in southern Seoul, where he claimed the monks paid for sex.
Poirier expects to dismantle ‘Korean Zombie’ Jung
USA Today
Dustin Poirier believes he can draw out the Chan Sung Jung that slugged his way to a “Korean Zombie” nickname.
“He likes to get in there and throw punches, so I think if he gets hit on the chin, it’s going to go back to a brawl,” says Poirier, who will face Jung on Tuesday for the Ultimate Fighting Championship. “I’m expecting to pick him apart.”
Shin-Soo Choo is Tribe’s newest leadoff hitter
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Acta put Choo in the leadoff spot that time to get him some extra at bats. This time around, Acta is more interested in Choo’s .361 on base percentage.
“We need somebody to get on base,” said Acta. “Choo has a good on base percentage. The league average is .319.”
Jessica Jung First Pitch Fail: Korean Singer Makes Terrible Throw (VIDEO)
Huffington Post
Thanks to 23-year-old Jessica Jung, baseball fans everywhere now have a new video instructing the proper mechanics of how not to throw a baseball.
Jung is a Korean-American singer and dancer best known for her work in the nine-girl group, Girls’ Generation. Escorted to the mound by two mascots of the Seoul-based LG Twins, Jung prepares her pitch with a long wind-up before unleashing her best heat.
Udine 2012 Review: UNBOWED
Twitch Film
Following its release earlier this year during the lunar day holiday, Unbowed met with much the same reaction as last year’s Silenced. They were both incendiary courtroom dramas based on real events that became big commercial and critical hits while also serving to open up long overdue national dialogues about Korea’s justice system and its rampant cronyism. In fact, in the space of just a few months there were three high profile Korean courtroom dramas that connected with audiences, the other being The Client (2011), itself a strong feature which also alluded to problems in the country’s legal system but was mostly a generic (and fictional) piece.
CIA agent on using his wife to smuggle equipment … and how ALL North Koreans are obsessed with porn
The Daily Mail (U.K.)
He learned about blood feuds from Afghan tribal leaders and he learned that al Qaeda terrorists and enemy agents from North Korea all have a weakness for porn.
Crumpton said: ‘I never met a North Korean that did not like pornography.’
Telling interviewer Lara Logan what he would have to do in his line of work, Crumpton said: ‘Supplying porn to a North Korean official to entice them to spy for America, along with money or whatever else it might take. Well, for me the answer was yes, I was willing to do that.’
Born and raised in Seoul, where academic success is paramount, children’s author and illustrator Yangsook Choi was tired of being classified as a “shirker” throughout her childhood for her “idle doodling.”
“It took me 20 years to realize that I was meant to be an artist,” Choi said.
So Choi moved to the United States to pursue her studies in art and received a master’s degree in illustration from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She went on to write and illustrate children’s books, including The Name Jar, Behind the Mask and Peach Heaven.
The 40-something South Korean native has ventured beyond the pages of print literature, and her colorful artwork can now also be found on a new multicultural children’s iPad app, “Oy China!”
How would you describe your style of art? (more…)
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Featured Event
One of the the biggest Asian cinema events to hit Southern California opens on May 10. The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, presented by Visual Communications, features the latest works by established and emerging filmmakers, along with seminars, panel discussions and symposiums on topics relevant to Asian Pacific cinema.
Opening Night features “Shanghai Calling,” directed by Daniel Hsia and starring Korean American Daniel Henney, who plays a Chinese American expat lawyer navigating his way through the mean streets of Shanghai (the picture above also indicates he is a raisin smuggler). But does he take off his shirt? Go watch the movie to find out! read more
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