Random Notes -- Vol 5, No. 1

The Film Society of the Lincoln Center has posted its top 100 films of the past decade. Bong Joon-ho's THE HOST was the top Korean film, at No. 71 (eh). His (much better) MEMORIES OF MURDER landed in 84th. Hong Sangsoo had two films on the list, WOMAN ON THE BEACH at No. 83, and TURNING GATE at No. 97.

Other thoughts on the FSLC list... Very cool to see IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE at No. 2. And two films by Apichatpong Weerasethakul in the top 10 (and another at No. 39). But I think I was most amazed that Tsai Ming-liang's GOODBYE DRAGON INN made it to No. 23; I loved the film, but I had no idea so many other people liked it, too).

AVATAR is officially the biggest foreign film ever in Korea. As of Jan. 17, it has about 9.3 million admissions and 80 billion won ($71 million). Definitely it will be the first foreign film to top 10 million admissions. TRANSFORMERS 2 was the previous record-holder, with 7.4 million admissions. Years ago, James Cameron's TITANIC was the foreign record holder (heck, it was the biggest film ever in Korea before SHIRI came along), with 4.5 million admissions.

Harper's Index is now online and searchable. Here are the results you get for "Korea". Sadly, no results for "kimchi"; the search engine must be broken or something. (Nothing under "Mongolia" either).

Sounds like a pretty big shipment of counterfeit DVD's caught by the United States, having come via Korea. I wonder if they were Yongsan specials...

How completely shocked am I that this is the fifth year I have been doing this blog? Incredible how quickly the time passes. But hopefully I will get off my butt and open the new website soon.

Okay, this is totally random... But over on the Predictably Irrational blog (found via Andrew Sullivan), the author compares the Google prediction for "How do I get my girlfriend to" versus "How do I get my boyfriend to".

Inspired, I decided to type into Google "Why does my husband", which brings up the predictable ("...look at other women", "ignore me", "lie to me", etc.). Interesting, if a little depressing.


And then I typed "Why does my wife", and I found a rather surprising suggestion.

Marmots, Trolls, Avatars and Other Random Creatures

So, the Marmot's Hole closed the comment section. Very good, says I. If people have something to say, let them write about it on their own websites. Or they can email the blog owner, and if he likes it, he can post it. I know my view is a minority, but that is what I think of Internet commentary -- keep the signal-to-noise ratio as high as possible. Even if it means being choosy or mean.

Strangely, the closing of the comments have led to some really weird accusations here and there around the Korea blogosphere. People have called the Marmot arrogant or a sell-out or whatnot. Kind of fascinating, really, to see what kind of a bizarre world so many people live in, and how much we bring our own quirks, foibles, biases and scars to our analysis of the world (myself included).

As someone who knows the Marmot reasonably well, I can say with some assurance that "arrogant" is about the last adjective one can apply to him. His blog has changed over the years, but that is mostly based on changes in his life. For several years, he was translating for a Korean news site, so he was regularly immersed in Korean news; his blog content reflected this. Plus he had a lot more free time at work then. One reason I liked the blog so much back then is that it provided fast commentary on the news of a sort that one could not find elsewhere in English (and was hard to find in Korean, too, imho).

But after he changed jobs to Seoul Magazine, he was no longer surrounded by news, and he no longer had nearly as much free time. No surprise that his website content changed to reflect his new job and schedule. That is the simple truth. No government pressure on him. No one telling him to do more of this or less of that. No dreams of glory. No Uncle Tom hopes of being accepted by Korean society by attacking foreigners. Just changing circumstances.

(I should note, too, that no one has remotely come along to pick up his slack from his news-blogging days. As I said last year, with the disappearance of Oranckay and Antti Leppanen from the blog world and the Marmot changing his style, it was a real hit for English-language commentary on Korea. Sure, there are more voices out there now, some quite interesting, but no one is doing what they were doing).

Although I see Robert is now planning to re-introduce comments, with some snazzy new moderation software in place. Best of luck to him. But seeing how his comment section went (and others like it at countless other blogs and forums I have followed over the years), I offer the following half-assed analysis:

Bad commenters drive out good (as Coming Anarchy noted, this is the Internet version of Gresham's Law). Back when the Marmot's Hole averaged 10 comments a post, it had more substantial comments than when it was averaging 50-100 comments a post.

Insanity is solely a function of size.

Ergo, eliminating a crazy will not reduce the amount of insanity in a website. Either someone else will become infected with the craziness, or else two or three people will start to share a portion of the crazy.

Corollary: No one can be crazy alone.

(Counter-corollary: Michael Jackson. And most other mega-celebrities, who clearly go insane after too much isolation).

(Possible counter-counter-corollary - We are all nuts already. Just the Internet sometimes makes it more noticeable.)

And finally, most people's reading comprehension is really terrible.

* * *

Okay, so I saw AVATAR over the weekend. And I suppose I liked it well enough. It was impressive. But at the end of the day, that is all it was -- an impression. Great special effects, but nothing that held any weight, which I fear is the problem with all digital effects. When I think back on Aliens, or Skeksis, or even ET, despite the mechanical fakeness they sometime had, I remember them with a sense of reality. AVATAR, however, I remember like a video game. A really expensive, well-made, realistic video game, but still fake and slight.

Honestly, I quite preferred TITANIC. Sure it was cliched and had some terrible dialogue, but its basic plotting and storytelling were fantastic. The world it presented felt truly real and substantial.

Anyhow, after I saw AVATAR, I saw IN THE LOOP, and I liked LOOP a lot more. Funny, insightful, often witty and sometimes even wicked. And a film for grown-ups. Highly recommended.

Btw, AVATAR did 1.6 million admissions last weekend in Korea, or about 13.6 billion won. Not bad, but certainly not SPIDER-MAN or TRANSFORMERS numbers.

* * *

Random note: I loved this Manohla Dargis interview from a couple of weeks ago. As many others have quoted: "Let's acknowledge that the Oscars are bullshit and we hate them."

Pop Is Dead Random Notes - Vol. 4, No. 2

The "pop" in POP GOES KOREA (and Korea Pop Wars), of course, is a reference to pop culture, or "popular culture". Well, over the weekend, the man who apparently came up with the term "popular culture" passed away. His name was Ray Browne, and he was a professor at Bowling Green State University (in Ohio).

Amusingly, he claimed that his first use of the term in 1967 was a mistake. He was originally using the term "people's culture", as well as terms like "everyday culture" and "democratic culture".

On the other hand, "pop art" was apparently coined in 1954 by John McHale. So maybe that was my real point of reference, I just did not know it.

* * *

In other news, Edward Chun, the guy who wrote about Korean pop music for MTV Iggy a couple of months ago, just turned up on Gawker of all places. Edward is now in journalism school at Columbia, and for a project on journalism ethics, he and some students put together a presentation in the form of hiphop verse, using Jay-Z's Empire State of Mind. I found it quite amusing, in a goofy sort of way. Worth a watch, if you have not see it already. But what would Drunken Tiger think?

Random Pics

Here are a few random pics I found over the last few days that I found amusing/interesting for one reason or another.

First of all, from today's Joongang Ilbo and a story about payphones in Korea, the top 10 payphone locations around Seoul:


I have no great insights on these locations. Although I was amused to see a "correctional facility" make the ranking. Otherwise, I see no obvious patterns to these locations.

And to go with that, a chart of payphone usage in Korea since 1997.


I personally find this chart fascinating because I first arrived in Korea in 1996, in the middle of the pager era. Some of my most vivid memories back then are of the huge lineups everywhere, for pretty much any and every payphone in the country. Talking on the payphone in some loud bar, trying to explain to your friends how to get their. Or listening to someone at that same loud bar have a fight with his/her boyfriend/girlfriend (er... not that I never did anything so ridiculous, of course). Good times.

Anyhow, I find it amazing that there are still over 150,000 payphones in Korea. Although, according to the story, 20 percent of payphones have not been used in the past year. Yikes.

And then, just the other day, I checked out Korea's Web Standards website at www.webstandards.or.kr and found this:



"Cannot establish a connection" indeed. Fortunately, the link is working again, but at the time, it struck me as funny. (Actually, it is one of the many sites associated with the Korean web pioneer Channy Yun, a very nice guy).

Finally, here is a pic of Bong Joon-ho from the San Sebastian Film Festival last week, where he was on the jury.


That is him in the middle, looking toward the camera with a funny look on his face. I do not know why, but his expression seemed pretty amusing.

Seulpeun Annyeong, Hanyang...

Okay, it is about time I said a few things about my life and what has been going on for the last while. Obviously I have not been updating this blog as often as I should, nor have I been able to share with you as much fun news from the Korean entertainment industry as I would like. These bits of personal news are are not really secrets -- all my friends know about this stuff already, but for various reasons I did not feel like posting about it online.

Main news #1 is that I am not The Hollywood Reporter's correspondent in Korea anymore. Nor Billboard's. Nor anyone's. In fact, I have not been much of a reporter in over a year. Last year, Bang Productions, a rather cool documentary company based in Singapore, hired me to help them develop several Korea projects. We produced those two HIP KOREA programs (on Rain and Lee Byung-hun) and we have several other fun things in the works.

Main news #2 is that I will not be in Korea much longer. In a few days, I will be moving to Spain. Why? Who knows. But after so many years in Korea, it is exciting to be beginning a whole new phase in my life.

So, what does that mean for KOREA POP WARS? Well, first of all, tomorrow's box office update will be my last. When I started writing the box office three years ago, it was actually pretty tough getting that information. I had to slog through a bunch of sources to fit together something decent. But these days, thanks to KOFIC and KOBIS, box office numbers are fairly readily available. You can link to here (although I imagine KOFIC will probably change that link one or twice each year, so no guarantees how long it will last).

It also means that this blog will not be around much longer. For now, I will keep using it, perhaps turning it into a Spain version of London Korean Links. But some time soon, I will be introducing a new blog at www.markjamesrussell.com (for now, it just redirects here).

In the meantime, I should thank everyone who checked out KOREA POP WARS, whether regularly or just once in a while. And a huge thanks to everyone who bought a copy of POP GOES KOREA. That was the main impetus for starting this blog, and for all the book's faults and shortcomings, I am proud of it (and, once again, big big thanks to everyone who helped me with it). The nice reviews and kind words have only been a bonus.

I suppose I will give some sort of Farewell Address in the coming days, just to sum up my thoughts and feelings after so long living in Korea. And there will be periodic updates, as different things occur to me. Most importantly, I think there will be some fun news coming from www.markjamesrussell.com, as my new life in Europe begins to take shape.

Hip Korea on Discovery II: Even Hipper

Back in February, I mentioned the HIP KOREA documentary on Discovery Channel, a program about the singer Rain and modern Korean culture in which I was involved.

Well, now it is time for episode 2 of HIP KOREA -- SEOUL SAVVY, featuring the actor Lee Byung-hun. In many ways, HIP KOREA 2 is the prequel to the Rain episode, as this episode goes back and examines the changes Korea went through during the 1990s and into the 21st century. Rain is about where Korea is now, but Lee Byung-hun looks at how Korea got here.

It turns out that Lee Byung-hun is a pretty good conduit for that story -- he first made it big in 1992/3, around the time Korea got its first civilian president. He made JSA in 2000, at the same time as the North-South Summit between the Koreas. He starred in a couple of huge TV dramas that helped spark the boom of Korean TV dramas around Asia (aka Hallyu). And he starred in a couple of really big movies (A BITTERSWEET LIFE and THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD) that showcased how far Korean movies and society have come along.

HIP KOREA -- SEOUL SAVVY makes its debut on NHK in Japan on June 13 at 12:55am (technically June 14), in a two-hour, back-to-back showing with HIP KOREA -- SEOUL VIBES (the Rain episode). It then encores on NHK BS (satellite) on June 19 at 8pm and June 20 at 4:30pm.

It airs in Discovery at the following times in the following locations:
Korea - Thursday, June 18 at 8pm. Encores on June 20 at 2pm, June 21 at 1am in the morning and June 23 at 12am midnight.
Singapore/HK/Malaysia - Thursday, June 18 at 7pm. Encores on June 20 at 1pm and 12am midnight and June 23 at 11pm.
Taiwan - Sunday, August 16 at 10pm. (Rain's episode will be bundled and aired at 11pm.) Encores on August 23 at 3am and 3pm.


I am quite excited to finally have this going on the air -- it was a lot of work and took nearly a year to make. Actually, considering how Lee Byung-hun is a fairly substantial chapter in my book, POP GOES KOREA, you could say I have been working on this episode for years. So I hope you have the time to check it out.

Kollision in (North) Korea

Hey, look at this. Video of Ric Flair vs. Antonio Inoki at Kollision in Korea. The two professional wrestling legends fight in front of 190,000 North Koreans at their famous 1995 match in Pyongyang.


Online Videos by Veoh.com

Or you can see it here.

Even if professional wrestling is not your thing, it is really interesting listening to the commentary. They talk about how Inoki spend a year and a half trying to organize the bout, and how before the match, they laid flowers at the tomb of Yeok Do-san (aka, Rikidozan), one of the greatest pro wrestlers ever (and a man who came from North Korea).

Sometimes I really love the Internet.

Blogging the Blogs

Philip Gowman over at London Korea Links has just written a post titled WHO'S WHO IN THE KOREAN BLOGOSPHERE. Where I was more than a little shocked to see that my blog was No. 19 in the Blog Juice ranking. Maybe he did not include a lot of Korea-related blogs when he made that list.

Anyhow, I appreciate the "juice," so thanks to all who read this blog.

But in reading Philip's column and looking at the Juice List made me realize who little good information is available about Korea through blogs (in English, anyhow). I think things were much better two years ago than today.

For example, the big daddy MARMOT'S HOLE. Back when the Marmot had a different job, it provided him with early access to a lot of breaking news, making his site the place to go to learn about the latest happenings in Korea. That job also allowed him some pretty good insights about the news, too (what was or was not being said in the usual English-language news stories, or who a lot of the actors were in the big stories).

Today, however, the Marmot has a lot of other things on his plate and a different job, so that newsy aspect of his blog is much lighter than it once was. Plus the comments section has grown pretty wild and unkept for a couple of years now (maybe more, I cannot remember). It is pretty interesting, though, to go back into his archives from three or four years ago and look at some of the people who used to comment there regularly.

But the current Marmot Hole does have a lot of great photography of Korea, so that is pretty cool. And when time and events permit, he can still get deeper into current events than any other blogs.

Another long-gone but not forgotten blog was ORANCKAY's, which is apparently not even active anymore. I see that the registry has not expired, but there is not even a home page to see anymore. But when Oranckay's blog was going strong, it provided a very insightful look into Korea, from a guy who had lived nearly two decades here, and who had great language skills and connections.

No. 18 on the Juice List is the now comatose HANJUNGUI KARUCHIM, by Finnish smart guy Antti Leppanen. Antti was working on his PhD in Anthropology, looking at Korean shop culture, giving him an interesting and different perspective on Korea. And he knew everything about Sillim-dong, too. But about a year ago Antti decided he had had enough of blogging and has since pretty much shut down.

Together, I think those three sites were among the best ways to learn about Korea in English. But today two are gone and one has changed into something rather different.

GUSTS OF POPULAR FEELING remains a very good blog, looking at urban history and modern culture, with the occasional commentary on the news.

After that, things get pretty thin. The Korea section of the scholarly FROG IN THE WELL blog gets few updates and does not have a lot (although some of the articles there can be gold).

Gord Sellar's blog is not newsy or scholarly, but it can be quite interesting. Plus how often do you get to read someone who attended the Clarion science-fiction writing workshop?

JOSHING GNOME can also tell a pretty good story, with more than a little insight into Korea.

Sometimes it seems like just about everyone has a movie blog, and there are no shortage in Korea, too. Of course Darcy Paquet's KOREAN FILM PAGE is the place to start (with subsections for several good blogs, including Tom Giammarco's SEEN IN JEONJU quite interesting and history-filled one).

FRANK'S KOREA WEB PORTAL has a whole bunch of links (although I am not sure how often it is updated or how current it is. It is also home to the venerable Korean Studies Discussion List.

Philip's links and commentary at the LONDON KOREAN LINKS is pretty strong, too.

For music, you have INDIEFUL ROK and my other blog KOREA GIG GUIDE. Or, if you are a 15-year-old girl, SOOMPI.

And...? I am sure there is more out there, depending on your tastes and interests. For example, I have almost no interest in slice-of-life blogs, so have no idea what the best are for Korea. Nor am I much interested in Korean TV dramas or celebrity gossip (if you like that sort of thing, I'm sure you will have no problems finding those blogs).

If I am missing anything really good (whether obvious or obscure), I would love to know about it. As I said earlier, I think the Korea blog scene is rather less useful than it was 2-3 years ago. But I would love to be proven wrong.

UPDATE: Julian's suggestions in my comments section inspired a response from me. One that I think worth adding to the original post, so (with a little editing) here goes:

In regards to Grand Narrative, Brian in Jeollado and Korea Beat... IMAO, Korea Beat is the more interesting site... somewhat. At least they are providing access to stories that do not usually make it into the English-language world.

I do not read the other two much. Nothing particularly wrong with them... they are just not to my taste. Too talky, perhaps? Like the Metropolitician, I find they are more about opinion and less about adding original information about Korea.

Let's see... any other top-20 Juice blogs worth mentioning...

ROK Drop has some useful perspectives, particularly on military issues. Although he can sound a little whiny at times, and takes way too many points from American right-wing AM radio/websites. But definitely a useful option.

And... I guess the other ones just don't strike my fancy. Not terrible (many are quite good). But I do not think they are very useful for learning more about Korea.

As for blogs not in the top-20, I should add the Dramabeans is a fun blog about TV dramas, even though I claim not to like such things. But it is probably the best one out there.

Hey! Leonid Petrov has a blog. About North Korea. That is kind of neat and worth checking out.

Of course, there are hundreds of Korea-related blogs out there and I would not pretend to be any sort of great authority on the subject.

But I feel confident returning to my original point -- if you want to understand Korean news, current affairs and the country in general, I think things are not as good today as they were a couple of years ago (at least from a blogging perspective). Maybe more sources are around now, but none of them compare to the top three of the past.