My mother recently asked me if I had any strange or memorable dreams when I became pregnant. I then recalled that Koreans believe a woman begins her pregnancy with a 태몽 (tae-mong), or a dream about the conception of the child. (I thought this was unique to the Korean culture but apparently not - J just confirmed that the Chinese believe the same thing!) When my mother first became pregnant with me, she dreamt that she was caught in a terrible thunderstorm. To escape the rain, she sought shelter in a dilapidated building. She looked up at the ceiling and was horrified to see a great number of snakes writhing and squirming on the roof beams. While most of them were a...
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If Korea were to have a national dish, most people would undoubtedly point to kimchi. With roots tracing to ancient times, there exist dozens of variations, and is the most popular banchan - or side dish - on Korean tables. Kimchi is so deeply-rooted in Korean culture that Koreans say "kimchi" instead of "cheese" when smiling for the camera. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you may remember when I wrote about Space Kimchi, which was developed so that Korean astronauts do not have to part with kimchi when in space. Heck, there is even a Kimchi Museum in Seoul! (image source) Having been born in South Korea, and raised by a mother whose Korean...
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Having grown up in the U.S., I have heard on more than one occasion that celebrities possess larger heads compared to those of the general population, the idea being that the larger head will have larger features, which will show better on screen. There is even an episode of Entourage where Turtle proclaims, "The bigger the head, the bigger the star." However, in Korea, the exact opposite is true. The smaller your head/face, the more attractive you are. A picture of Ivy, a Korean celebrity, posing between two fans. Notice how small her face is compared to that of "normal" people. (image source) It is not uncommon for foreigners to be utterly confounded when first met with this phenomenon. "Gosh, your face is...
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While Hallyu (aka the Korean Wave) has been sweeping across the eastern hemisphere like a tazmanian devil on crack, Korean stars have yet to penetrate the fickle and demanding world of Hollywood. Until just recently, Korean celebrities' foray into American pop culture could be summed up in two words: epic fail. Take Rain, for example. Rain, who is possibly the most popular male celebrity in all of Asia - voted the second most influential person in the world by a Time magazine poll in 2008 - managed to gain some recognition when Stephen Colbert challenged him to a dance-off: However, his first venture into Hollywood, playing the part of Taejo Togokahn in the disaster of a movie known as Speed...
Continue readingA couple of weeks ago, Korean actress Ok So Ri made headlines for being on trial for adultery. After admitting in court to the affair, Ok So Ri took the case to the South Korean Constitutional Court in an attempt to overturn the country's anti-adultery law. The law was enacted fifty years ago to protect women who had few rights in a male-dominated country. However, critics claim that the statute is no longer fit for Korea's modern society with advanced civil and family court systems. Furthermore, some view the anti-adultery law as a means of revenge by the scorned spouse. Three days ago, the verdict came in: the request to overturn the law was denied and Ok So Ri was sentenced to two...
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