THE KOREAN THE KOREAN WAVE AS VIEWED THROUGHWAVE THE PAGES OF THE NEW YORK TIMES IN 2008 THE KOREAN WAVE AS As Viewed Through the Pages of The New York Times in 2008 THE KOREAN WAVE AS VIEWED THROUGH THE PAGES OF THE NEW YORK TIMES IN 2008 THE KOREAN WAVE AS This booklet is a collection of 62 articles selected by Korean Cultural Service New York from articles on Korean culture by The New York Times in 2008. THE KOREAN THE KOREAN WAVE AS VIEWED THROUGHWAVE THE PAGES OF THE NEW YORK TIMES IN 2008 THE KOREAN WAVE AS As Viewed Through the Pages of The New York Times in 2008 First edition, April 2009 Edited & published by Korean Cultural Service New York 460 Park Avenue, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10022 Tel: 212 759 9550 Fax: 212 688 8640 Website: http://www.koreanculture.org E-mail: [email protected] Copyright©2009 by Korean Cultural Service New York All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recovering, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. From the New York Times © 2008 The New York Times All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of the Material without express written permission is prohibited. Cover & text design by Jisook Byun, Hee Kim Printing & binding by Wonha D&P Printed in Seoul, Korea Korean Cultural Service New York CONTENTS FOREWORD LIFE STylE The 2008 Korean Wave: Wave or Particle? 008 From Bi Bim Bop to a Huge Spa 073 Wed to Strangers, Vietnamese Wives Build Korean Lives 076 MOVIES Elite Korean Schools, Forging Ivy League Skills 080 Brutishness Begets Brutishness On the Road 013 A Funhouse Floating in a Korean Spa 084 Gangsterism as Allegory For Life’s Basic Themes 014 For Studies in English, Koreans Learn to Say Goodbye to Dad 087 Film 016 Where the Growth of Lush Fairways Has No Bounds 090 Planet B–Boy 017 In a Sweltering City, Any Sliver of Shade Will Do 093 If You Embrace the Body, The Heart Might Follow 018 A Taste of Failure Fuels an Appetite for Success at South Korea’s Cram Schools 097 Shaking Up the Crowd at Cannes 020 In the Produce Aisle, Solidarity for Korean Grocers 100 NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2008 023 For South Korea’s Blind, a Livelihood Is Challenged 102 No Regret 024 For All Kinds of Good, Clean Fun, Koreans Turn to Bathhouses 104 New York Korean Film Festival 025 Korea Aims to End Stigma of Adoption and Stop ‘Exporting’ Babies 107 In Toronto, Sampling Realism’s Resurgence 026 Exotic Flavor, Beyond Just the Food 110 As Asians Excel at L.I. School, District Tries to Lure Parents 113 MUSIC&DANCE Japan and Its Neighbors Scrutinized in Mirrors 029 SpORTS To See (and Hear) the World in Five Hours: Unique Sounds Ripe for Import 031 Recovery Shot For Wie 117 Moon and Earth and Sky: A Festival’s Long Reach 033 A Veteran Takes a Bow as a Youngster Takes the Title 119 An Eco–Friendly Pianist Wears Her Heart on Her Sleeveless Dress 035 Kim, 23, Plays Like Woods, Then Gets a Call From Him 121 North Koreans Welcome Symphonic Diplomacy 037 Fury of Girl’s Fists Lifts Up North Korean Refugee Family 123 A Little Nuke Music 040 CULTURE CLASH 126 Supercharged Solo Followed by a Cosmic Energy Riot 041 On the Summer Menu: Light Musical Fare, Served With a Few Wry Asides 043 &MORE Romantic, With Touch of New–Music Vigor 045 In Seoul, a National Landmark Ablaze 131 South Korean Gate Destroyed in Fire 132 FINE ART Guys and Dolls: An Ugly Remake 134 Pink Is for … 047 South Korea Will Lift Its Ban on American Beef 136 Scholarly Status Symbols of Old Korea 049 Koreans Agog as Off–Screen Soap Becomes Courtroom Drama 138 Lee Bul 051 Just Smelling the Coffee May Wake Up Genes 141 Going Straight to the Source 052 Cubicle Rats 142 The Perfect Shape for an Unusual Space 054 Returning in Her Favorite Role, Herself 145 Desolate Dots in the Sea Stir Deep Emotions as South Korea Resists a Japanese Claim 147 FOOD Korean Star's Suicide Reignites Debate on Web Regulation 150 With Kimchi, a Little Alchemy 057 South Korea Joins Lucrative Practice of Inviting Medical Tourists to Its Hospitals 152 Life as a Repast, Not Yet Complete 059 Textbooks Dwell on a Painful Past, Offending South Korea’s Conservatives 155 Starship Kimchi: A Bold Taste Goes Where It Has Never Gone Before 062 The Legions Of Frozen Yogurt Push East 064 THE LIST OF 2008 The New York Times articles on Korean Culture 158 To Dine Here, First You Need Nimble Fingers 067 Korean Restaurant Week 070 BCD TOFU HOUSE 071 he articles about Korea in the New York of recycled juice containers at her Zankel Hall recital, Times 2008 touch on a wide range of points, we can also find other forms of recycling in the articles The 2008 Korean Wave: from cram schools to Dokdo (literally mean- about the New York Philharmonic orchestra’s journey Ting Lone Island in Korean) in Korea, or from the New to Pyongyang for a concert. At the end of a rehearsal, York Philharmonic’s concert in Pyongyang to Bi Bim for example, orchestra members offered some of the Wave or Particle? Bop in Koreatown, New York City. There are many visiting North Korean students musical gifts includ- notable points in that broad spectrum of Korean pop- ing “strings, orchestral music and cane to make reeds.” By David R. McCann ular culture and its presence in today’s world—what is For an encore at the concert, the orchestra offered the called the Korean Wave. most Korean of all folk songs, Arirang. The audience “stood, cheered and even waved farewell,” and the In his Introduction to last year’s edition, Charles players waved back. Armstrong noted that the term Korean Wave came from China in 1999, referring to the “explosive growth The concert prompted a perhaps overly clever title in popularity of Korean films, television programs, for an editorial, “A Little Nuke Music,” pointing out pop music, and fashions in that country.” While the North Korea’s delays in the denuclearization pro- term seems at first glance merely descriptive, it might cess. One might ask what, other than recycling the lead us to wonder, at least a bit, about the energy sourc- name, does the editorial on the North Korean nu- es that set it in motion, the media through which it clear program have to do with Stephen Sondheim’s moves and makes itself seen, heard, tasted, felt; and 1973 musical A Little Night Music, or Mozart’s Eine perhaps, I’d like to suggest, how it shares properties of kleine Nachtmusik? Yet if we throw into this mix the both particle and wave. Philharmonic’s concert trip to the Soviet Union half a century ago, in 1959, and the Boston Symphony’s What are some of the particulars of this current round 1956 path–breaking journey to Leningrad, we may of the dynamic Korean Wave? The various sections of note the remarkable stand–off and then breakthrough the compilation have sorted them out into seven cat- between soft power musical diplomacy and the most egories: Movies, Music & Dance, Fine Art, Food, Life hard–frozen displays of power. The editorial states Style, Sports and &More. Films might show people that “President Bush wasted years refusing to deal with and things being battered to bits; the international film North Korea,” so there is a poignant irony to the com- festivals seem in turn to be the venues where they and ment by Condoleeza Rice, then Secretary of State, and other Korean productions have washed up, increas- an accomplished pianist: “I don’t think we should get ingly to great acclaim. In Music, where we read about carried away with what listening to Dvorak is going to a fine young Korean pianist who wore a gown made do in North Korea.” FOREWORD David R. McCann is the Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, and director of the Korea Institute at Harvard University. He is the recipient of numerous prizes, grants, and fellowships, including the Order of Cultural Merit award (2006), one of the highest decorations by the Korean government, and the Manhae Prize in Arts and Sciences (2004). 9 Foreword The 2008 Korean Wave: Wave or Particle? rather different idea of performance is to be According to the story, one result of this wave of in- ife Style reflections on domestic Korean so- a time of conversation and stories, food, and exchanges found in the Sports section. Should Korean terest in foreign educational opportunities is that only cial and cultural change were not included in of cups—Why did I always seem to have two in front and other “foreign” golfers be required to Canada and Britain as “foreign countries” rank ahead the first Korean Wave compilation, perhaps of me?—we got up and went out into the yard, where Aspeak English? For a time the LPGA thought so, with of Korea at the moment in the number of undergradu- Lbecause the anticipated impact of the singer Rain we arranged ourselves in a large open circle. Someone its announcement of the requirement that after two ate students now at Harvard.