It’s about Seoul’s version of the 48 Hour Film Project.
But none of them, as far as I know, had music by Elroy Jefferson and the Space Cadets.
2 days agoFairly interesting story in the Christian Science Monitor quoting experts claiming that in Kim Jong-il’s public appearances over the past few months, it hasn’t really been him, but one of his doubles. The last line I’m quoting really did it for me:
No one here, however, is ready to go as far as Japanese writer Toshimitsu Shigemura, who has written two books and numerous articles claiming that Kim has been seriously ill for the past decade and may even have died.
Mr. Shigemura says that if the real Kim, looking wan and weak, appeared before the Supreme People’s Assembly several days after North Korea fired a long-range missile on April 5, then it must have been a look-alike who hosted former US President Bill Clinton in August.
“They were totally different people,” says Mr. Shigemura, a former correspondent for Mainichi Shimbun, a major Japanese newspaper, who now teaches international relations at Waseda University in Tokyo. “In August, he looked very healthy.”
Shigemura suspects that a skilled actor delivered the lines to Mr. Clinton during their three-hour, 17-minute meeting, which ended with Mr. Clinton flying back to the US with two journalists who had been held for 140 days.
Shigemura is equally convinced that an actor played Kim in recent meetings with China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, and the head of Hyundai Asan, the South Korean company responsible for developing special economic and tourist complexes in North Korea.
After the June 2000 summit, says Shigemura, Kim “was bedridden with diabetes” and “cannot walk by himself.” He cites the names of three Japanese who claim to have met his look-alikes, including one who was told flatly, “I am a double.”
One of them, a magician named Princess Tenko, Shigemura describes as a “close friend” of Kim, saw him more than once in visits to Pyongyang.
6 days ago“Inglourious Basterds,” - or “Basterds: Nasty Guys,” as the Korean title translates - finally came out here! My review.
1 week agoOn October 26th, 1909, Korea was less than a year away from being fully annexed by Japan. At the time, there was already a Japanese resident general in place overseeing the Korean peninsula. His name was Hirobumi Ito, and he had been Japan’s first prime minister during the late 19th century. One hundred years ago today, he was gunned down at the train station in Harbin, China, by Korean nationalist Ahn Jung-geun.
Today, to say that Ahn is considered a hero in South Korea seems like an understatement. The Korean government and press consider him and his actions heroic, and view the assassination as in line with bringing peace to East Asia. While sitting in Chinese jail in the months following the assassination, Ahn worked on an essay called “On Peace in East Asia.”
Recently, new Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has talked about the importance of East Asian regionalism and integration. Here, you have editorial writers crediting that idea to - guess who?
In Seoul, at bus stations, there have been posters with Ahn’s face hanging up for a few months. One of the symbols representing him is a hand print with the ring finger lopped off (a sign of his devotion to the cause of Korean independence). I took this picture yesterday at Gwanghwamun Plaza, one of the main public gathering areas in central Seoul:
Kind of a big deal?
Adding to the public idolatry, a musical called “Hero,” about Ahn’s life, begins today. Hello, Stephen Sondheim.
And then there’s this tidbit that ran on our front page today:
“We thought, this is it - the Ahn Jung-geun Guitar!” said Han Yeong-hun of Samick Musical Instruments.
The local musical instrument maker has recently introduced the Ahn Jung-geun Guitar, a limited-edition electric guitar made especially for the centennial of Ahn’s assassination of Ito.
Samick, one of the market leaders in the guitar industry, has in recent years felt more and more threatened by its foreign rivals. The recent setback in the world economy also took a toll on its business.
“We felt we needed to brace ourselves, to face these challenges with strong determination, just as Ahn did,” Han said.
Don’t Panic! South Korea heard about your “national emergency” in the U.S. We’ve got everything under control. Eat your kimchi!
Click through for an explanation.
And by explanation, I mean, of why kimchi is delicious.
Not how it will prevent the flu.
1 week ago
Hello, readers. I know it’s been a while. If you correspond with me via e-mail, you might be used to this phrase: “Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you.” But lately, the time I could be spending blogging has instead been devoted to studying Korean.
As Kurtis Blow would say, “these are the breaks.” [Incidentally, I bought “The Best of Kurtis Blow” at a flea market in early September. A few weeks ago, my office participated in a flea market of it’s own, and employees were required to donate three items. Since I didn’t really bring much to Korea besides clothes and a handful of books I have not read, it was farewell to Kurtis Blow.]
But despite very little free time to speak of, I have had a few stories published in the last month or so:
Review of “Fireproof.” It’s a Christian film starring Kirk Cameron that was released in the U.S. in 2008. Why did I see it? Part of the explanation is in the review. The other part of the explanation is that because of my class schedule, I couldn’t make it to the theatre that week, so I asked my roommate to download one of the week’s new releases for me. I didn’t specify, and he didn’t think I would be interested in seeing “The Ugly Truth.”
Expats help celebrate “Chuseok,” the Korean harvest moon festival.
Review of “Metropia,” a Swedish animated film with the voices of Vincent Gallo and Juliette Lewis. It’s about the future being bleak and mind control and it was kind of boring. It was shown at the Pusan International Film Festival, which I had the pleasure of attending (more on that later).
Review of “Moscow,” which was also screened at PIFF. A really stellar Korean take on a cross between a buddy movie and a bildungsroman. Stars two really shining young Korean actresses.
2 weeks agoDo you like:
Globalization?
Linguistics?
Korean nationalism?
All of the above?
Has the New York Times got the article for you!
You may have read about this about a month ago, when an Indonesian tribal gropu and a Korean NGO announced they had struck a deal for the tribe to adopt Hangul, the Korean alphabet, as it’s written language. Having lacked a writing system, and with the Korean alphabet apparantly matching well with their sound system, it was a match made in heaven!
Erm, kinda. As neat as it is, there are some easy questions to ask. Namely…why? If you’re like me, your initial reaction to this was, “Cool!”, but this article did a pretty good job of splashing cold water on those thoughts.
If there’s going to be this random ethnic group who learns Hangul, it seems to me like a logical step might be that some of them eventually start migrating to Korea, and provide cheap labor. But what’s immigrants here generally seem to be not treated very well, so even if they do know Hangul, the one country outside of their own that they may be able to communicate in will treat them as third-class citizens because they’re not actually Korean.
One thing I’d still maintain though, is if the sounds do match up, then Hangul could indeed be a much better choice than the Roman alphabet, which could result in clumsy transliterations that lack the proper subtleties. But that still probably wouldn’t outweigh other needs for having a written language.
1 month agoIn case you missed it, there has been some reporting on what’s up with North Korean leadership over the passed week.
First, the Mainichi Shimbun reported last week that they obtained some documents that confirm Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il’s third and youngest son, is indeed poised to succeed his father someday. The article speaks for itself, but I think it’s probably highly questionable whether the things they gathered are real or not. And even if real, it’s worth remembering while an official textbook is helping to shape his image, and a secret police memo is understood to be wishing for his ascension, the North Korean government is hardly monolithic; a lot more will play out behind the scenes when succession is imminent and necessary.
The Washington Post, however, is reporting that this chain of events is a lot further off than we think. Now that it seems Kim Jong-il’s health has begun to rebound, the Post’s sources are saying that the propaganda campaign (which the aforementioned textbook likely would have been part of) has been put on hold.
But wait! Yonhap strikes back [via AP/FoxNews] late today with it’s own source saying that the propaganda campaign is indeed ongoing.
The one thing that we know for sure? Nobody *really* knows just what is going on.
1 month ago
