Ruler of the Your Own World (네 멋대로 해라) — The Halfway Point

During my first few years in Korea, I asked Koreans I knew what was the best South Korean-made TV show they’d ever seen. I would hear different answers from different people, but one consistent answer I got from people who cared about and consumed a lot of movies, films, and books, was the recommendation that I check out 네 멋대로 해라, a TV program that aired back in summer/fall 2002 (and which, in English, got titled Ruler of Your Own World.) Somehow, though, my other (very brief) experiences with Korean TV dramas kept me skeptical. I don’t care for the kind …

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Korean Girl Groups as a Window to the Industrialization of Culture

EDIT (5 Sept 2001): I goofed on the dating of the video I used as historical evidence, as one commenter pointed out. What can I say? Duh! See the comments section for more. (But I don’t think it kills my argument… there’s other evidence for that.) ORIGINAL POST: When I arrived in Korea, people were using the word “talent” in a way I really didn’t understand: it was synonymous with “performer”… even performers who quite obviously had no talent. And believe me, there were lots of those on TVs in those days. I’m sure some people out there would say that …

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Chocolat (쇼콜라) — The Mixed-Race Girl Group

Miss Jiwaku recently complained on her blog of how the whole musical trend of girl groups and boy bands has “ruined everything” in Korea, especially advertising. I’ve noted a few times on my Twitter feed how when actual girl groups aren’t being used to advertise water parks, girl group-like collections of women have been created for advertising. For one park, she informed me, a “girl group” was actually formed — the “Ocean Girls”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIg46YFuqIU This, she assures me, was not the case a decade ago, when water park ads featured… you know, kids playing and families enjoying themselves together, and …

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Two Good Korean Films

I don’t watch a lot of Korean films these days, in part so few good ones are put out, but also because none of the good ones actually play in my neighborhood. No, it’s all junk in my neighborhood, and I’m busy enough that sometimes it’s hard to justify the trek out to Seoul to see something worth seeing. But the other day, Miss Jiwaku dragged me to a couple of great films that were showing in Guro. The first was the omnibus film If You Were Me 5 (시선이 너머). I never managed to see the third and fourth …

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Primitive Selves: Koreana in the Japanese Colonial Gaze by E. Taylor Atkins

I cannot actually post my review of the book here — a review I’ve just finished, finally, though I got the book in late November. I can’t because I’ve actually just finished writing the review and need to send it to the Japan Times, for whom I was asked to review it. However, there are a few points I think are interesting, and worth mentioning here, not only because they didn’t fit into my review but also because they will probably interest readers of this blog who find the Korea-related or expat stuff interesting. If you’re one of those, read …

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