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Korea’s Got Talent Champ is a 17 year old female popping dancer, Ju Min-jeong who beat out the favorite, Choi Seong-bong. You might remember Choi from a previous post. He’s the rags to, well more rags? He was a laborer, orphan and won the hearts of people around the world with his singing skill. You’d think singer would beat out dancer, and especially this singer, but no! The event is definitely not fixed. For more on Choi, click to our previous post. [youtube]fGPP0v6Mwdk[/youtube]
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We can easily see a movie being made about Kim Seong-do, who protects some smaller inlet islands between Korea and Japan. He works alone and is a fisherman, not military. At 72, he curses at fisherman trying to land on the deserted islands to score fish. The Japanese government wants the islands, Korea says it’s there, but it’s in the hands of a policing older man. There’s now patrols and such, but it’s still a strange tale. Here’s three elevator pitches. Horror (yes, island ghosts of dead fishermen or soldiers or even pirates come back to claim the island as theirs from the modern man), thriller (a gun battle of one man vs a special forces team of brigands who also want the islands to house munitions for an illegal war), or even a bromance film (the lone man meets another lone fisherman, perhaps the other is Japanese and they can’t understand each other). Now, someone make this. (LA Times – Lone Korean)
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Asia is changing. I wrote previously that Japan’s ethnic sociology is shifting. However, Japan isn’t the only country in Asia coping with evolving demographics. According to a recent article from The Diplomat, South Korea is finally acknowledging the permanent settlement of foreigners, international marriages, and their children. This is just one of the many sociological issues that South Korea shares with its continental cousin. The other is the ethno-nationalism that persists in both countries. This blood-based nationalism has, as the article suggests, restricted South Korea from sublimating its definition for what it means to be Korean in the 21st century. What the article overlooks is that this race-based brand of politics is directly related to one of its historical enemy. Scholars and commentators like B.R. Myers have argued that the myth of Korean exceptionalism traces back to Japan’s annexation of Korea. According to Myers, the concept of tanil minjok (단일 민족) didn’t appear until the Japanese brought it to Korea. The Japanese implemented a European inspired brand of race theory to co-opt a developing nationality ensuing in reaction to the Japanese occupation. Except in this instance, the Japanese occupation taught Koreans that they were both of the same “Yamato race.” The only difference, in the eyes of the occupation, is that the Japanese saw most ‘Koreans’ as subordinate due to distinctions of class according to Sociologist John Lie’s book, Multiethnic Japan. What came about is the ethno-nationalism that people see today. The reason why I bring up the shared historical ideologies of Korea and Japan is because, as I stated earlier, both countries are facing shifting demographics. The days in which someone who is born in Japan is always of “100%” Japanese are long gone. The myth of homogeneity in Japan and its discriminatory practices against foreigners is the recurrent narrative in The Land of the Rising Sun. A similar type of story is surfacing where non-Koreans and their biracial inhabitants face identical prejudices. Furthermore, Japan’s reluctance to tackle these issues could offer a framework for what South Korea should avoid. So far, I’m under the opinion that the Japanese government has done little to ameliorate the problems their immigrants face. In certain instances, some of the comments from their various Prime Ministers and politicians have done more exacerbate sentiments against its multi-ethnic residents. (See Taro Aso and Ishihara Shintaro). Similarities aside, the stark difference between the two nations is that South Korea seems to be taking the issue seriously. The only education based multicultural program in Japan that I can recollect at the top of my head is the JET Program and that’s proving to be a bungling failure in its own respect. It’s not just this, but Japanese politicians have been more than stubborn to the U.N.’s calls for legislative reforms on the matter. The creation of a multicultural program catered directly towards its inhabitants is unprecedented in its economic big brothers like China and Japan. Like Japan, China is defensive of its domestic practices. I spoke to Michelle Gamboa,...
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It’s a sad day for the dog meat fans in Korea. The festival is cancelled. There’s more to the festival that the fantastic idea of dog eating. There’s cosmetics and more that use dog product. “… there are about 600 farms raising dogs for meat in South Korea, where their meat has long been eaten and dog soup, or Boshintang, is a summer delicacy.” Either way, dog fans around the world would make this the butt of jokes for decades more. It’s not like there’s enough dog eating jokes, and a festival that glorifies the wonders of eating the brothers of our best friends, just won’t fly. (Google hosted news – Dogtown)
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“Two years ago, one of its most successful groups, Dong Bang Shin Ki, took its management company to court, on the grounds that their 13-year-contract was too long, too restrictive.” The music is really fun, very danceable, and the young boy or girl singers are really cut, have great moves, and some have amazing voices. Yup, Korean pop, or K-Pop, is fun to hear, fun to watch, and is really starting to find a fan base outside of South Korea and Japan. But behind those happy singing young faces apparently lurks a music management machine that does not have a track record for always treating the talent very well. Seems that many K-Pop acts are subjected to very restrictive contracts which are not very financially rewarding for the performers and instead focus on ensuring singing coaches, choreographers, wardrobe specialists and other management expenses are paid before band members ever see a check. Sure, this overall scenario sounds similar to stories we’ve all heard about exploitative music managers in Motown and Hollywood. But in Korea it seems to be aggravated by the youth of the performers and a general cultural distaste for aggressive and fair negotiations. K-Pop is sure fun and definitely growing in “pop”-ularity, so here’s hoping this young industry can get past these unpleasant internal growing pains. (JYJ3 Official Website – K-Pop Industry Woes)
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