A Classic K-pop Song by Suki

The song is classic k-pop in that it is rhythmic, moving, and sing-along-able!  Suki is a real talent.

Beauty of the Week: Eugene

The Korean singer, MC, and actress is as talented as she is beautiful.  So cute!

Real name:  Kim Yoojin
Stage name:  Eugene

Music Break Featuring "Ajumma" Kang Ji Min

In a country that has perfected bubble-gum pop, South Korea has pretty much ignored folk music ("the real music") and folk musicians.

The Korean ajumma above is Kang Ji Min, and she sings both Korean and American pop classics.  Her voice in this rendition of "Without You" is almost perfect.  It is pure and powerful but not showy, unlike the Mariah Carey's version.

Just an ajumma with her guitar, laptop, and amazing voice...

One of the Best K-Drama Songs...

Unlike low-quality American dramas, Asian drama series put a lot of money and resources into their production, including the official sound track (OST).

This song is from the Korean drama, "Kingdom of the Wind."

The singer is the great Wheesung.

The Problem with K-Pop

By Bian-lian Huang

Korean popular music, or K-pop, has been spreading throughout Asia like wild fires over the last 15 years.  Legions of crazed teenage girls line up in Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Manila, HCM City, Jarkarta and, of course, Seoul to welcome these K-pop idols whenever they come to town.

At its core, K-pop consists of very good-looking kids (boys and girls) singing beautifully written songs and executing flawless dance choreography.  Often these kids are cosmetically enhanced and always dressed in the most amazing clothes/costumes which would make any L.A. fashionista green with envy (because we can't get them here in America!)

Therein lies the problem.  K-pop is too perfect and formulaic.  It is so because K-pop is a product of the massive South Korean pop industry.  In fact, most K-pop idols physically live under the same roof -- the company dorm -- where they rehearse the songs and dance routines hours on end.  One can say that K-pop stars are trained like Chinese Olympic athletes.

The result:  perfect, cookie-cutter boy and girl bands that wow Asian audiences.  However, the same bands have yet to win over American and European audiences, except for the niche crowd.  Why is that, Mr. Fairbank?  Because K-pop has no soul.  It's a mass-produced product -- just like widgets or Hyundai cars.  

Western audiences, for the most part, have gone beyond the sleek dance routines of the 1980s (a la Michael and Janet Jackson) or the good-boy image of the 1950s and 1960s.

We want something more organic and genuine.  We like performances that are rough around the edges.  We want a few scars on our performers' faces to signify maturity and a real life that has been lived.  We are way beyond the bubble gum era of the 1950s.

K-pop has yet to experience its versions of the Rolling Stones, the Doors or the garage band phenomenon.  In this regard, K-pop is invariably stuck in the 2010s-version of the 1950s.  And it will remain there and continue to produce cookie-cutter pop stars who execute sleek and technically superb dance routines that are still soulless and mesmerizingly mechanical...

Yet Another K-POP Suicide

　Chae Dong-ha, 30, former member of the Korean pop trio SG Wannabe, was found dead in his home Friday morning, his agency said.



　Chae had hanged himself in his house in Eunpyeong-gu. Chae’s manager said Chae could not be reached the night before, and he was found dead the following morning when the manager arrived at his house. Police believe Chae committed suicide on the night of May 26.



　Chae’s agency said he had been suffering from depression since the death of his former manager’s, who committed suicide in 2009 in a motel in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang province.



　Chae had expressed his affection for his former manager in an album he released that same year. On the album Chae wrote, “He was everything to me -- my consoler, my friend, my brother. When I met him, I had the whole world in me.”



　Chae debuted in 2002 with his first solo album but failed to gain popularity. In 2004, he formed a ballad trio, SG Wannabe, with Kim Yong-jun and Kim Jin-ho. The group became popular in South Korea and Japan. In 2008, however, Chae left SG Wannabe and moved to a different agency. In 2009 he released his second solo album.



　Chae had been planning a concert next month in celebration of his birthday on June 23.



　Just four days before Chae’s death, an MBC sports announcer committed suicide. Celebrities including actor and singer Park Yong-ha, actress Choi Jin-sil and actress Jeong Da-bin have committed suicide in recent years.



　By Yun Suh-young (syun@heraldm.com)

Source:  Korea Herald

K-Pop's Wonder Girls Not Being Treated so Wonderfully?

http://www.koreaherald.com/entertainment/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20100511000742

A former English tutor for popular K-pop group Wonder Girls on Tuesday painted a grim and detailed account of the group’s management company JYPE’s “ill-conceived” handling of the band’s venture into the North American market.

Daniel Gauss, who was the group’s New York-based English tutor from October 2009 until this month, said over a series of e-mails to The Korea Herald that the girls had been mismanaged and mistreated by local music mogul Park Jin-young’s entertainment company.

Original members of Wonder Girls (Kim Myung-sub/The Korea Herald)

Gauss’ claim as the group’s private tutor was confirmed over the telephone on May 11 by two current Manhattan-based JYPE employees.

Gauss alleges that all members of the group were housed illegally in the Manhattan offices of JYPE and that they had not been given health insurance coverage during their time stateside.

“I was shocked when one of the girls told me that the girls are not covered by health insurance in America,” he wrote. “I once saw one girl in extreme pain -- due to a pre-existing problem stemming from a previous operation -- who received no professional medical treatment for the pain and I saw others with minor ailments go untreated.”

Gauss further wrote that after the group acquired a sponsorship deal with Sony Ericsson, JYPE had Sun-ye perform in Sanya, China, for Sony Ericsson executives, shortly after her father was rushed to hospital in a coma.

He wrote that Sun-ye had told him “her father had stopped breathing and had to be rushed to the hospital. In the ambulance, (Sun-ye) and her family had to decide whether the father should be given treatment to be kept alive since he had lapsed into a coma. The family chose to keep him alive and I was told by the girl that he was never going to come out of the coma.”

“Very shortly after that trauma, she was performing for Sony Ericsson executives in Sanya,” Gauss wrote. “I did not have the heart to ask her whether it was her idea or JYPE’s idea for her to perform.”

He also claimed JYPE illegally housed the members at the company’s Manhattan office -- for which he said the city of New York slapped the company with a $2,500 fine.

An online link to the New York City Department of Buildings provided by Gauss confirms that the company had not only been issued a class-2 citation (violation No. 34765862, infraction code 208, section of law 28-118.3) on May 28, 2009 and fined for altering and changing an occupied building for residential use without a valid permit, but also defaulted on the violation.

The company was scheduled to appear in court for a hearing last month, but failed to do so, which has resulted in the case being given a default status.

Gauss also said that JYPE had sold the band’s CD at a bargain basement price of $1 at retail clothing chains around the United States, which significantly boosted both its sales and its performance in the Billboard Hot 100 charts.

On Oct. 23, 2009 the group’s single “Nobody” entered the top 100 at No. 76, something widely publicized by the local media.

This was confirmed by Wonder Girls’ former manager and current JYPE marketing department employee David Hyun.

“That was part of our distribution deal and that is definitely one of the reasons why they cracked the top 100,” Hyun said.

When pressed about Gauss’ other allegations, Hyun refused to comment any further.

“I rather not comment on anything that came from (Gauss) other than confirm he used to tutor for the Wonder Girls,” he said.

Jane Kim, the group’s current manager, refused to state why Gauss had quit his job as a private tutor.

“I feel as though I don’t have to comment on anything (Gauss) might have told you,” she said over the phone.

“The girls are confident they can become a success here (the U.S.) and they have refuted (Gauss’) accusations about the company.”

A request for a phone interview with the group was denied. In a telephone interview with The Herald Business, JYPE chief Jung Wook, dismissed the allegations by Gauss.

In his e-mails, Gauss claims he quit his position because he had become disenchanted with JYPE’s management of the band.

He had been contacted by reps from the company after he had posted an ad on Craigslist as an English tutor in New York. But according to him, once he began his job, he became increasingly concerned about the way the group was being managed by the company.

“I cannot profit in any manner by revealing this information,” he wrote. “I believe my motives are genuine. I did not ask for any compensation for any of this information and I do not want any. I saw and heard about some nasty things at JYPE and I think people have a right to know the truth, especially since the girls are under contract for the next three-plus years and might not be able to speak freely about negative aspects of their experience.”

Koreans Krazed about Plastic Surgery Now Face Economic Woes

The Fairbank Report has extensively covered the plastic surgery craze in Asia since 2005. (See our entry about "Dawn Yang" of Singapore.) It is indeed sad to see so many sheeple whose only source of self-esteem comes from the television set or the pages of air-brushed magazines.

Economy Blunts Korea’s Appetite for Plastic Surgery

The New York Times

By MARTIN FACKLER

Published: January 1, 2009

SEOUL — A grim frugality has settled over this export powerhouse that once burst with optimism — and silicone.

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Seokyong Lee/Penta Press for The New York Times

Park Hyun, a plastic surgeon, offering guidance to a patient at his clinic in Seoul. Fewer people are getting facelifts.

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Seokyong Lee/Penta Press for The New York Times

A counselor on the phone with a patient at Park Hyun Plastic Surgery Clinic in Seoul.

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Seokyong Lee/Penta Press for The New York Times

Dr. Park, far right, performing plastic surgery.

Cosmetic surgery took off here after South Korea’s spectacular recovery from its currency crisis a decade ago. Rising living standards allowed ever-growing numbers of men and women to get the wider eyes, whiter skin and higher nose bridges that define beauty for many here. Improved looks were even seen as providing an edge in this high-pressure society’s intense competition for jobs, education and marriage partners.

But turmoil coursing through the financial world and then into the global economy has hit South Korea hard, as it has many middle-income countries. The downturn drove down the stock market and the currency by a third or more last year, and the resulting anxiety forced many South Koreans to change their habits.

A particular chill has seeped into the plastic surgery industry, emptying waiting rooms and driving clinics out of business.

“In hard times, people always cut back on luxuries like eating out, jewelry and plastic surgery,” said one plastic surgeon, Park Hyun, who has seen the number of his patients drop sharply. “If this is a normal recession, then these desires will eventually get reignited, and our patients will come back.”

After a pause, Dr. Park added: “If this downturn is like the Great Depression, then we are all going to get killed off.”

It is hard to measure the exact size of the industry here or the extent of the current downturn because no one keeps exact figures. Seoul-based ARA Consulting, which specializes in the plastic surgery industry, said reports from surgeons and local media suggest the number of patient visits each month is down 40 percent since September.

That would be a huge setback to this once fast-growing industry. From a luxury limited to the wealthy a decade ago, according to ARA, plastic surgery has become so common that an estimated 30 percent of Korean women aged 20 to 50, or some 2.4 million women, had surgical or nonsurgical cosmetic procedures last year, with many having more than one procedure.

That compares with 11.7 million cosmetic procedures performed last year in the United States, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, meaning that the number of procedures in America is 4.9 times the number in South Korea, though the United States population is more than six times larger.

“As South Korea became wealthier, it was just one more thing that women desire,” said Yoon Sung-min, ARA’s chief executive. He said many doctors were drawn to plastic surgery because payment is outside of the national health care system’s price controls, allowing bigger profits.

Nowhere has the boom, and the currently unfolding bust, been more apparent than Seoul’s fashionable shopping neighborhood of Apgujeong.

More than half of South Korea’s 627 registered cosmetic surgery clinics are here — their names, including Dr. For You and Ivy Plastic, visible among the fashion boutiques and wine bars.

But their once-crowded waiting rooms are empty. For sale signs have begun appearing on clinic doors for the first time in memory, and some 20 clinics have already closed.

Dr. Park, the plastic surgeon, predicts a third of Apgujeong’s clinics could close by spring.

“This is the Mecca of plastic surgery in Asia,” said Dr. Park, who sat in his lavishly decorated wood-paneled clinic overlooking the neighborhood. “But even a Mecca can fall on hard times.”

Dr. Park said December would normally have been his peak season because high school seniors finish South Korea’s grueling university entrance exams and prepare for winter graduation. He said the exhausted students — and their equally stressed mothers — often celebrated by getting cosmetic surgery.

Not last December. Though he would not disclose specific numbers, Dr. Park said his patient load was down by half, leading him to lay off three of his seven nurses and office workers.

Sung Myung-soon can sympathize.

Like millions of South Koreans who recently emerged into the middle class, Ms. Sung, a 54-year-old homemaker, enjoyed a lifestyle of shopping at malls and lounging by her health club’s pool, and — until a few months ago — regularly visiting the plastic surgeon, where she maintained her youthful appearance.

But the financial crisis in the fall has brought fears that South Korea’s good times may be over, or at least on indefinite suspension, and Ms. Sung has cut back by making fewer visits to her plastic surgeon and bargaining hard for discounts when she does visit. She refuses to give up her plastic surgery altogether.

“Even at times like these, women still want their plastic surgery,” said Ms. Sung, who recently rounded her eyes and smoothed wrinkles on her forehead.

Typical of South Korea’s more frugal patients, she chose less expensive procedures, like Botox injections to remove wrinkles, instead of her usual surgery. She also said she would reduce her number of visits to once a year, from twice.

Still, surgeons say the continued desire of women like Ms. Sung to look beautiful will keep the industry alive, although it may shrink greatly.

But Dr. Park and other plastic surgeons said the country’s decline has brought one silver lining: South Korea’s currency has fallen so far that procedures here are now cheap when calculated in dollars and other currencies. This has led to growing numbers of Japanese, Chinese and Korean Americans coming to Seoul for relatively inexpensive cosmetic procedures.

Some clinics said 20 to 30 percent of patients are now foreigners, up from 10 percent last year. A few larger clinics are even taking the opportunity of a downturn at home to open branches in China, the country seen as the industry’s next big growth market.

Other plastic surgeons have left the Apgujeong area to escape the intense competition. One, Jang Yeon-jae, recently moved to a small clinic in the nondescript middle-class neighborhood of Nokbeon, in northern Seoul, in hopes of drawing new customers. He said business had been slow so far at the clinic, whose tiny waiting room has a peach-colored sofa and a television playing footage of Korean pop concerts.

The lower volume of patients, as well as the national plastic surgery downturn, has led Dr. Jang to change some of his habits too. “Before, I focused on profitable procedures” like breast enlargement, he said. “Now, I take every little procedure, even just removing a single mole.”

Some companies in the industry are adapting in other ways. Hyumedi, a firm that sells and leases medical equipment, has been buying used equipment from liquidated clinics at fire sale prices.

Jeon Jin-wook, the company’s chief executive, said he had bought so many machines that he rented a second warehouse just to store them all. He said he expected demand for second-hand equipment to pick up as clinics can no longer afford expensive new machines.

“It is a good time to stock up,” Mr. Jeon said. “We have to change with the times.”

Su Hyun Lee contributed reporting.

South Korea's "Culture of Suicide"

Up-and-coming actress Jung Da-bin hanged herself in February 2007.

K-POP, or Korean popular culture, has now permeated throughout the world. In fact, Korea's two largest broadcasters, KBS and MBC, are now vying with the legendary BBC and Voice of America (VOA) to project Korean culture, arts and cinema to the world. And it appears that the global audience is lapping it up. K-POP stars have mesmerized the world audience with their stunning good looks (often achieved through plastic surgery), charm and grace.

But behind the world-famous glam that is K-POP, there's a sad tale. Since 2007, there has been a string of high-profile suicides of K-POP stars who were in their 20s and 30s. While this statistic is scientifically insignificant, we thought that it might prove to be a sentinel indicator. And yes, it turns out to be so. In 2006, South Korea had the highest suicide rate of all the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the elite club of the world's 24 richest countries) member countries. See http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/158160.html .

Clearly, Korean society -- like that of Japan -- is not easy to negotiate for those who deviate (or are perceived to do so) from the narrow normative parameters. Here's one commentator's take on suicide and Korean culture. We don't necessarily subscribe to his thesis, but it is worth a read.

Well, one thing worth thinking about -- I think the nastiness is partially enabled by 1) lazy moderators on sites, and 2) the particularly extreme nastiness of the Korean internet.

Now, before people go off saying this is "racist" or whatnot, I'll say that I place this all squarely within a framework of causality -- not just "Koreans are essentially, genetically X."

There is an extreme amount of competition for scarce resources in this society, ranging from less space-per-person, how standardized tests rule everything, the extreme militarized hierarchy of society, and the general amount of mental trauma that has not at all been dealt with throughout the entire 20th century.

Take a country ravaged by invasion and colonization for 36 years, forced labor and military conscription through World War II, then "liberation" by a new set of neo-colonizers, then a devastating war that ravaged the nation and rent family ties asunder, which was then followed by dictatorship, torture, and the constant threat of force by the government on labor unions, activists, and anyone else who bothered to question authority, coupled with the crushing of organized labor and the democracy movement (within a nominal democracy, right? the irony) in Kwangju, and the constant "scare" and suspicion that one's neighbor was a "Commie" -- and then suddenly, the economy is great-n-the-80's, people are toting Prada bags and Beamers (or wanting to), and busy enjoying themselves -- or trying not to think about the massive collective trauma inflicted upon them.

Read more at http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/korean_pop_culture/