A former teacher in Korea who endured the confusion and hardship of learning the customs of marrying a Korean woman, wrote a comedy script of his marriage tales in Korea, which was recently greenlit by Lions Gate. The film will be shot on location and be not unlike Meet The Parents, but with a Korean twist.
In other films about the Korean expat experience, we’re still waiting to hear of the exact release date of ‘Expats’, an offbeat comedy about expats living in Busan, starring Chris Klein of ‘American Pie’ fame. The plot is said to be ‘A unique caper in the vein of Ocean’s 11 meets Lost in Translation‘.
And I’m also very pleased (albeit, cautiously) to hear that there’s going to be a US-remake of the fab Korean supernatural thriller, 장화, 홍련 (A Tale of Two Sisters), which was the big breakthrough performance of a young Moon Geun Young, not to mention a sinister, yet totally fucking sexy performance by Yeom Jeong-ah. I’m glad that Hollywood is taking note of Korea’s totally underrated spooky thriller genre, even though the US versions are likely to totally suck ass compared to their Korean counterparts. Anyways, if you haven’t seen this Korean thriller yet, make a beeline straight to your nearest DVD bang and watch it in the dark. If this was an M. Night Shyamalan film, critics would probably rank it his 3rd best, right after Signs (his #1, IMO) and 6th Sense.
Just noticed this at Brian’s. Make sure you read the full account. Especially the part where the attacker barges into the foreign teacher’s house and threatens him to keep his mouth shut.
…in film, yet still gives a big blind eye about tying them up and letting them hang upside down, beating the hell out of them until they die, and then skinning and slicing them up for soup. Or in short, how they kill them in order for use as an ingredient in 보신탕 (which tastes like ass, IMO).
I saw this picture written in this article about the beef crisis, which perfectly captures the undertone of the whole issue. It’s become more of an event to rally Koreans and their friends, moreso than the cause. Especially when the cause is about something silly, such as the real truth that we are only talking about 2 cows that were afflicted by mad cow disease (one of the cows was from Canada, yet one cannot find a single candle of protest about Canada), back in 2003. Or the unsanitary horror of watching a Korean news segment on how US cattle is slaughtered, yet there are no hygiene regulations in Korea to oversee the millions of dogs slaughtered for food each year, because they are not considered to be livestock. Meanwhile, its become not uncommon to see placards and signs amongst the protesters, who are not bitching about the baseless beef claims, but rather about calling for Lee Myung-bak to scrap plans to build his canal project, his aggressive English learning policies, or problems with the Korean health care system.
If anyone sees a protester, please take a moment to remind them what they are supposed to be protesting about, in the event that they are unsure and are only coming along just because its currently hip to be social street activists.
SNSD is a popular Korean girl band that has been frequently searched on Naver of late, and is oft considered to be the girl version of Super Junior. But underneath all the feelgood hype is a ferociously intense world of fan clubs, rivals, and sniping. Some members of SNSD have put their feet in their mouth and dissed other, more senior music groups over the past year and have brewed up an anti-SNSD storm, only to be passionately defended by manic SNSD fanboys. Rivaling fan bases of SNSD, SuperJunior, DBSK, get so worked up over each other in online and offline fights, that it transcends the real artists. Yesterday, SNSD released a formal appeal/apology to its fan base on its site, hoping to stem the tide of hate and fighting.
Some ESL springboard questions for discussing the topic with your students:
-What bands are you a fan of?
-Which fan base do you think is the most fanatical?
-Who is more at fault? The bands or the fans?
Young Koreans browsing at a major bookstore in downtown Daegu, feast on the hype, as Obama Fever breaks out across Korea.
Next week, the Obama campaign will hold two fundraising events in China.
The candidate himself won’t be making an appearance. Instead, guests at the Bejing home of David Brooks, a Coca Cola executive there, will hear from two senior foreign policy fellows from the Brookings Institution who advise the Obama campaign, Ivo Daalder and Phil Gordon. If the June 17 appearance does not satisfy, American expatriates in China can hear the two foreign policy experts opine at an event on June 19 in Shanghai hosted by Ted Hornbein, an executive a Richco, a company that manufactures electronic components for cell phones and the like.
No rules prohibit fundraising abroad, so long as the donors are American citizens. And a number of the 2008 presidential contenders engaged in overseas fundraising during the past 16 months. McCain, for instance, held a March 20 luncheon at Spencer House — the neo-classical home built for an ancestor of Diana, the late Princess of Wales — “by kind permission of Lord Rothschild OM GBE and the Hon.Nathaniel Rothschild.”
But Obama appears to have collected the most funds from overseas, at least $1.6 million, according to Federal Election Commission records. (McCain raised $196,000 from donors living abroad, the records show.) While McCain’s contributions are centered largely in London, with a handful from Bermuda, the Obama funds have come from addresses as eclectic as Kabul, Dubai, Palermo, and Sydney.
Oh, well. Probably not a good time for him to stop by, given all the candle nonsense going on everywhere. Might be best to wait until the Korean news cycle changes everyone’s focus onto something new. Like a really big celebrity sex or political scandal, instead of the humdrum weekly scandals.
This is a shot of the candlelight vigil protests at Gwanghwamun the other night, regarding the beef over US beef. Nathan also has found a good shot of the same.
Nathan wraps up his weekend with a nice summary of what was hot on Naver last week.
