The U.S. falls again for North Korea’s tricks [Editorial]
Washington Post

The argument can be made that something, even a limited moratorium, is better than nothing. Maybe talks with North Korea will deter the new leader from misbehavior, such as more nuclear tests or military provocations of South Korea, if only for a while. But “stability” has been purchased not just at the price of 240,000 tons of food, but by sanctioning the continued oppression of 24 million people.

Thomas Kim, longest-serving president at McMurry Univ., dies
Reporter-News (Abilene, Tex.)

Dr. Thomas Kim, the longest-serving president in McMurry University’s history, died Monday in an Abilene hospital.

Kim, 83, served in the role from 1970 to his retirement in 1993, when he became chancellor. It was under Kim’s leadership, in 1990, that McMurry College became McMurry University. Gary McCaleb, former Abilene mayor and Abilene Christian University administrator, recalled Kim as a “great personal friend and professional colleague.”

“His spirit was always so collegial and cooperative in this community. He was really sincerely a part of just wanting everything in Abilene to work well,” McCaleb said. “When I was mayor, he was genuinely interested in what we could do to make Abilene a better city.”

Kim was born in 1929 in Shanghai, China, to Korean parents who had been converted to Methodism by an American missionary. His early years were spent fleeing the colonial Japanese army who had put a bounty on Kim’s father’s head.

Target of Llodra’s Racial Slur Says Fine Is Not Enough
New York Times

Alex Lee Barlow, a tennis fan from Oakland, Calif., was one of the thousands who made the trip for the first weekend of the [BNP Paribas Open]. Roaming the grounds with her husband and brother Friday, Barlow found a seat in the third row of the stands by the south baseline on Court 8, to watch a match between Michael Llodra of France and Ernests Gulbis of Latvia.

“It was a great match, it was a beautiful day — the whole crowd was getting into it,” Barlow said of the first-round match, which she entered during the second set. “One of the awesome things about Indian Wells is the closeness to the actual game.”

But Barlow, who was cheering for Gulbis with what she says were innocuous cheers like “Come on, Ernie,” was brought far closer into the game than she wanted. She soon incurred the wrath of Llodra, 31, who had already expressed his frustration by swatting with his racket between points and muttering to ball boys.

Llodra’s first comments in Barlow’s direction came in French. They were reported to include “putain chinoise,” which translates roughly as “Chinese whore.”

“He was looking directly at me,” said Barlow, who is Korean-American. “He didn’t yell it particularly loudly. He was turned toward the baseline, toward us, and he looked right at me and said this comment.”

For Some in Vietnam, Prosperity Is a South Korean Son-in-Law
New York Times

The young Vietnamese women typically married older South Korean men who, because of their low incomes or previous marriages, had difficulty finding a Korean bride. South Korea’s fiercely competitive marriage marketplace gave birth to a booming industry of marriage brokers who took these men on tours of Vietnam and other developing nations, where they chose wives in hastily arranged meetings.

It was during such a tour in 2007 that Mr. Bui and Ms. Nguyen’s daughter, Bui Thi Thuy, then 22, met her husband, Kim Tae-goo, a widowed apple farmer in his mid-50s. At the Lucky Star karaoke bar in Hanoi, none of the two dozen women there initially expressed interest in Mr. Kim. But Ms. Thuy and two others stepped forward after Mr. Kim promised to send $100 a month to the parents of the woman who would marry him.

Study: Asian Students Uncounted, Underserved in N.Y.C. Schools
Education Week (subscription req’d)

A Bangladeshi girl who spends her out-of-school time translating documents for her parents’ immigration hearings. A group of Chinese high school boys whose teachers can’t figure out why they’re so disengaged. A Vietnamese boy who speaks almost no English and is the only Asian student at his low-performing school. A Korean-American girl at the top of her class at Bronx High School for Science.

They are among New York City’s Asian students, and their needs are profoundly diverse, says a report released last week . It highlights the gap between the perception of Asian-heritage students as almost universally high-achieving and a more complicated reality that scholars say holds true nationwide.

Will Resurrecting a Mammoth Be Possible?
Wall Street Journal

It turns out that cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk really meant it when he said last October that his next project would be to bring a mammoth back to life.

On Tuesday, Mr. Hwang’s Sooam Bioengineering Research Institute signed an agreement with Russia’s North-Eastern Federal University to clone a mammoth, the giant elephant that went extinct several thousand years ago.

Daniel Henney to Act as Villain in ‘Mr. K’
Chosun Ilbo

Actor Daniel Henney will make a comeback to Korean film with Lee Myung-se’s comic spy action film “Mr. K.”

Henney will play a cold-blooded key character in a terrorist organization, a stark contrast from the roles he is most famous for in Korea.

South Korean Judges Losing in Court of Public Opinion
New York Times

In 2007, an appeals court judge named Park Hong-woo rejected Mr. Kim’s claim that Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul had wrongfully terminated him in 1996. After the ruling, which followed months of one-man picketing outside courthouses and hundreds of letters of complaint to the Supreme Court, Mr. Kim said he lost all hope of justice and decided to deliver the judge “a shock.”

So, three days later, on the evening of Jan. 15, 2007, Mr. Kim confronted Judge Park as he was about to take an elevator to his apartment in Seoul. “You call that a verdict?” Mr. Kim said, aiming his loaded crossbow at the judge.

Mr. Kim was sentenced to four years in prison for shooting an arrow at Judge Park. Headlined across the country as “Crossbow Terror,” the case drew attention both for its drama and the issues it raised. Even before the trial opened, the South Korean Supreme Court released a statement calling Mr. Kim’s action “terror against the rule of law” and vowing “stern punishment.”

K-Pop Fever Hits Chile, Peru
International Business Times

Korean Pop group JYJ took over South America this past weekend, thanks to sold out shows in Santiago, Chile and Lima, Peru. The three-member group is the first K-Pop act to perform in South America as headliners.

Dia Frampton covers 2NE1′s Lonely
allkpop via YouTube

Ben Henderson: Signature Moves
Fuel TV via YouTube

Twitter, Weibo Spread Rumors of North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un’s Assassination
Reuters

Did social media just prematurely kill off the leader of North Korea?

Rumors that Kim Jong-un, the country’s supreme leader, has been assassinated just months after he took power originated on Chinese microblogging service Weibo and have now spread all over Twitter.

Others are reporting that Jong-un, believed to be 28 years old, may be on the run rather than dead, but both reports claim that some kind of coup is taking place.

South Korea Lawmakers Make First Trip to Gaeseong Complex Since Kim Death
Bloomberg

Eight lawmakers toured factories and met representatives of South Korean businesses in the Gaeseong Industrial Park six miles (10 kilometers) north of the border that opened in 2005. More than 50,000 North Koreans employed by 123 South Korean companies at the facility produced a record $400 million in goods last year, according to ministry figures.
Park Joo Sun, head of a parliamentary committee on inter- Korea relations, said after returning that business owners told the delegation the complex needs 23,000 additional North Korean workers to meet growing demand.
“We hope that our visit can be a catalyst for increased activity in Gaeseong,” Park said at a press conference in the South Korean border city of Paju.

Mobile phones in North Korea: Some North Koreans get better connected
The Economist

North Korean mobile-phone users spend an average of $13.90 a month on calls and text messages, and they tend to pay in hard currency. According to a foreign diplomat, many customers turn up at Koryolink shops with bundles of euro notes. There are even incentives for paying in euros, such as free off-peak calls. This provides foreign currency for a government that craves it.

Mobile-phone customers obtain the hard currency from the informal private trading on which many North Koreans depend. Such business is forbidden, but the government has failed to feed its people, forcing it to turn a blind eye to some capitalist practices. Many insiders benefit: Pyongyang’s “golden couples” consist of a government-official husband and an entrepreneur wife.

From Korea to Minnesota and back: Kelly Fern shares her remarkable double-adoption story
Twin Cities Daily Planet

The more you learn about Kelly Fern, the more you want to know. Not only does she tell a moving personal story of being adopted from Korea at age five, she reveals that on the flight to America, her identity was accidentally switched with that of another young adoptee—a circumstance that ultimately resulted in her family adopting three Korean girls, not just the two sisters they’d expected. Further, Fern herself had a child who she gave up for adoption. In the space of less than a year, Fern recently reconnected with both her biological family in Korea and her biological daughter in Minnesota.

For He Is the Lin Beneath Our Wings
Wall Street Journal

Jeremy Lin sort of makes me feel sorry for the New York Rangers. This is not a slight of Lin, a genuinely compelling story who has captivated this town. But the Rangers have spent not days or weeks but years assembling a talented hockey club, and are currently rocking the NHL’s Eastern Conference. They have a genuine shot to make a lot of noise in the postseason.

But all of a sudden, in the space of 72 hours or so, the Rangers have been ushered to sports Siberia by a previously little-known point guard who has started a total of two games for the Knicks. A former backup to the backup point guard whom the Knicks actually demoted to the D-league a few weeks ago. A point guard who plays for a team that is 11-15, just frightful percentage fragments ahead of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Top Chef’s Ed: What’s the Point of Last Chance Kitchen?
TVguide.com

Edward Lee would like to point out that he technically was in the final four of Top Chef — for a few hours. But then Beverly, having won Last Chance Kitchen, returned to the game and out-cooked him for a spot in the actual final four. “It is what it is. I don’t hold a grudge. She won fair and square,” Ed tells TVGuide.com. “I shouldn’t have used the smoked oysters, so it was all on me.” Still, the Louisville-based chef is none too pleased with the second-chance secret competition for eliminated cheftestants.

Korean American hopeful Heejun Han moves on to the next round of ‘American Idol’
AllKpop

The February 8th episode of ‘American Idol’ featured the contestants auditioning on ‘Hollywood Week’, and Han won the judges’ votes by singing Michael Bolton‘s “How Am I Supposed To Live Without You“.

Although he looked quite nervous to perform after the confident and suave Johnny Keyser who won the heart of judge Jennifer Lopez (J.Lo), Heejun shook off his jitters and started his song. He did gain some confidence after J.Lo whispered “I love him,” to Steven Tyler in the middle of his performance.

When he sang the lyrics, “When all that I’ve been livin’ for is gone,” he even mustered up the courage to point to J.Lo, who remarked that his performance brought her to tears.

North Korean Ex-Propagandist Song Byeok To Show New Satirical Artwork In U.S. (PHOTOS)
Huffington Post

Byeok’s world changed completely in the late 1990s when famine struck North Korea, killing his father, mother, and sister. He wandered alone and hungry through a country he once loved, and was later tortured by the government he once idolized. At this point, he began a journey to discover a life outside of DPRK. Byeok, now in his 40s, has devoted his life to using his artistic skills to promote freedom through satirizing Kim Jong Il and the legacy of his reign.

Matthew Morrison, Daniel Dae Kim to guest co-host ‘Live! with Kelly’
Digital Spy

Hawaii Five-O and former Lost star Dae Kim will join Ripa to interview Two and a Half Men actor Jon Cryer and Dancing with the Stars professional Derek Hough on the February 20 episode.

Daniel Henney in ‘Shanghai Calling’ Trailer
Angry Asian Man

Here’s the freshly dropped new trailer for Shanghai Calling, the upcoming indie feature film debut from writer/director Daniel Hsia. It’s a romantic comedy, starring Daniel Henney, about American “expats” living and working in Shanghai. I think it looks pretty promising. Check it out: here.

North Korea’s super-size hotel is set to open — 23 years behind schedule
The Washington Post

“It was the hotel with the iconic crane,” said Simon Cockerell, an executive at Beijing-based Koryo Tours, which leads tourist trips to North Korea. “It dominated the skyline.”

Sometime this spring, though, according to the Yonhap news agency in Seoul, the Ryugyong Hotel will partially open — 23 years behind schedule. Initially, it might serve as an office complex, not a hotel, but eventually, travel agents say, the Ryugyong will open for tourists.

Krys Lee on Drifting House
wnyc.org

Krys Lee talks about her collection of short stories, Drifting House. Her stories illuminate the Korean immigrant experience—from children escaping famine in North Korea to recent arrivals in America, whose lives play out in cramped apartments and Koreatown strip malls.

As Buzz Fades, Singing Show Winds Down
The Wall Street Journal

One of South Korea’s biggest TV shows, “I Am a Singer,” comes to the end of an 11-month run this week, partly because its buzz has faded and viewing rates are sluggish.

For those who aren’t familiar with the program, here’s how it works: Seven professional singers perform and are ranked by an audience of 500. The singer with the lowest combined score after two rounds is replaced by a new contestant. And those who survive seven rounds – 14 contests in all – exit the show and are called “honorary graduates.”

Roving Robotic Scarecrows Battle Airport Birds
CNNGo

“They were originally commissioned by the military to prevent bird strikes at military airports,” said Yi Jongmin, head of public relations at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI).

The robotics lab at KAERI spearheaded the development — officially dubbed “Airport Birdstrike Prevention System” — in conjunction with weapons manufacturer LIG Nex1.

Bird strikes remain one of the top problems for airlines and airports around the world.

American Musician with a Passion for Korean
Chosun Ilbo

Michael Elliott was a composition student at California Institute of the Arts when he first came into contact with Koreans. He collaborated with several Korean animators, producing scores for their short films. Since he had been interested in languages from a young age, largely due to the influence of his grandfather, who is fluent in Spanish, he had dreamed of learning a new language but was too wrapped up in his music to do much of anything else. Working with the Koreans at CalArts, however, he started to learn a few phrases and this quickly blossomed into a hobby and then an obsession.

A Korean reporter’s perspective on the Orioles and Kim Seong-Min (update)
Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN)

One thing Kim believes is unlikely to happen is the Orioles signing of the pitcher to be overturned or voided in any way. He fully expects the left-hander to be an Oriole when this flap is over.

“I think the contract will go through. I believe the player already left the country and for now, I think it’s safe to say that Kim will be the property of the Orioles’ organization,” Kim said.

Kim feels what is at issue here is that the Orioles, reportedly according to the KBO, failed to first contact MLB, which was then to contact the KBO commissioner to get clearance for Baltimore to negotiate with the player. According to KBO rules, once MLB makes the contact, the KBO must respond within four business days.

“That is a process that all transactions must go through,” Kim said. “The Orioles, for whatever reason, they did not go through the steps. They contacted and signed the player directly. That seems to be the main issue with KBO. I think KBO feels somewhat disrespected.”

Korean baseball’s governing body bans Orioles scouts in wake of Kim signing
Baltimore Sun

This week, the Korean Baseball Association, the nation’s governing body for baseball, banned Orioles scouts from KBA-sanctioned games, which include the national high school and college tournaments that serve as a treasure trove for scouts seeking the country’s top players. The KBA added that the same penalty will fall on major league teams that contact amateur players before their senior seasons.

The KBA also suspended Kim from playing and coaching in Korea indefinitely for making contact with a pro team before his final year of high school.

The Great GQ Pants-Off
GQ.com

Check out Hawaii Five-O’s Daniel Dae Kim in this GQ photoshoot.

This March we announced the Best New Designers in America and asked each of the six winners to redesign a pair of Dockers khakis. Here, Daniel Dae Kim of Hawaii Five-0 wears the pants.

the zombie engagement photos… set to music!
angryasianman

By now, you’ve heard of Ben and Juliana, the badass couple facing off against a zombie in those awesome engagement photos that went viral last week. But if you can’t get enough of them, check out this cool video by our composer pal George Shaw, who actually wrote a score and set the photos to music:

Check out the iAmKoreAm.com story about the zombie engagement photos and interview with Juliana!

Asian Americans face new stereotype in ads
Washington Post

Here is an interesting piece on Asian Americans in TV commercials that points out that Asians are often cast as tech support-types with technological know-how.

‘Walking Dead’: Four New Clips Feast On Your Brains
MTV.com

At a scant 11 seconds each, the clips themselves don’t show, tell or even imply much new information about the season, but they do feature pretty much the most important of the show’s assets: Realistic-looking zombies and stark, abject terror. Featuring returning castmembers like Andrew Lincoln, Steven Yeun, Laurie Holden and others, the teasers show off the bleak, zombie-infested world established in the series’ first six-episode season.

Producer imbues Korean color to math animation
Korea Times

“Team Umizoomi” is a popular animated show for preschoolers airing on [Nick Jr.], solving everyday problems using math. Milly, her brother Geo and robot friend Bot work in a team, travelling in Umi Car to settle such daily problems as fixing a watering can.

The animation has a hint of Korean culture — the characters fly kites and the patterns on Milly and Geo’s clothes and of the buildings come from traditional Korean designs. Soo Kim, producer and design director of the show, has contributed to its unique atmosphere. “The characters have simple black eyes, just like Koreans,” Kim said in a telephone interview with The Korea Times.

Born in Korea, Kim immigrated to the United States when she was a child. She majored in pre-medical studies as most Korean-American children do.

Check out our April 2010 feature story on Kim and Umizoomi.

USC’s Dornsife College introduces new minor in Korean Studies
The Daily Trojan

Beginning this semester, USC is offering a new minor in Korean Studies. The 20-unit minor will cover the political, economic, social and cultural changes in Korea. It will be interdisciplinary in nature, with course subjects spanning departments such as cinema, history, international relations, language and critical studies with a particular emphasis on Korea. There is no language requirement, but students are welcome to take Korean language courses to fulfill minor requirements.

Chiu and Kim are making a quick trip to Burning Man
San Francisco Bay Guardian

Board of Supervisors President David Chiu will take a day off from his busy mayoral campaign next week to attend Burning Man, which he’ll fly into on a small private airplane along with Sup. Jane Kim and spend less than 24 hours on the ground.

Daniel Henney Says He’s a ‘Regular Korean Guy’
soompi.com

Daniel Henney is handsome.

Choi Sung Bong confesses that he tried to commit suicide
allkpop.com

The “Korean Susan Boyle” told CNN, “I felt like my life was meaningless so I attempted to commit suicide multiple times.” He added, “I felt calm when I listened to music, music was my only friend when I was lonely.”

In First, South Korea Votes on Social Policy
New York Times

Voters in Seoul went to the polls on Wednesday to do what South Koreans had never done before: cast ballots in a referendum on welfare policy — in this case, whether to provide all children with free lunches regardless of family income.

For weeks, placards supporting or opposing the proposal have greeted citizens throughout this metropolis of 10 million people. Although the referendum was confined to the capital, it assumed national proportions with all political parties joining the debate in a sign that, after decades of bickering over civil liberties, the economy and North Korea, they were now entering the largely untested field of social welfare.

Interview with Hollywood actress Sandra Oh
allkpop

Sandra spoke of her love for Korea as a Korean-Canadian and her hopes to one day star in a Korean movie. She also talked about the inside stories behind “Grey’s Anatomy” and how she was cast into the show.

“If I am to be cast in a Korean movie, I will be happy to take any role. I will study Korean, and if I don’t have any lines, I can act with just my facial expressions. I’ve always wanted to attend the Busan Film Festival, but I was always caught up with work. I want to attend the festival with a piece I star in.”

Somali pirates holding S. Korean hostages demand release of captured pirates
Yonhap

Somali pirates holding four South Koreans in a hijacked chemical tanker are demanding that Seoul pay ransom for the hostages and release five pirates captured during a January raid of a seized Korean freighter, an official said Friday.

The four South Koreans are among 25 crew members of the Singapore-registered 21,000-ton MT Gemini that was hijacked on April 30 in waters off Kenya. The seizure came about three months after South Korean naval commandos raided a Korean-owned freighter on Jan. 21 and rescued all 21 crew members.

N.Korean Defectors Flock to U.K.
Chosun Ilbo

Some 581 North Korean defectors have been given asylum in the United Kingdom, making them the largest group of all defectors in countries other than South Korea.

Korean young guns impress at British Open
AFP via Google

South Korean young guns Noh Seung-Yul and Hwang Jung-Gon led the Asian charge at the British Open on Thursday, signaling their talent with sub-par rounds at Royal St George’s.

Where in The World is Daniel Henney?
soompi.com

Daniel Henney recently wrapped shooting on the buddy flick with Bill Paxton tentatively titled “Americatown” and apologized to fans for not being online lately.

I know it’s been FOREVER since I’ve chimed in. My apologies. We’ve been in China for 1.5 months now shooting this film, and it’s been incredibly difficult to get online. Anyway, I’m back now, and will update you with some pics very soon…Pics from my last 1.5 months spent in China.

SUNY Gets OK for Campus in Songdo
The Wall Street Journal

Soon South Korean students seeking a U.S. diploma might be able to do so without even getting a stamp in their passports.

The Ministry of Education announced Wednesday that it has given final approval to Stony Brook University — or the State University of New York at Stony Brook — to open a campus in Songdo, the newly established international business district near Incheon International Airport.

Koreans turn to dog soup to beat the heat
Reuters via ABC News (Australia)

Thursday was not a good day to be a dog in South Korea. That’s because it was one of the three hottest days according to the Korean lunar calendar – and dog soup is one way to beat the heat.

On “Chobok,” people seeking to protect the body from overheating eat traditional healthy foods such as ginseng chicken soup, broiled eel and “bo-shin-tang,” literally “body preservation stew”.

Dogs are bred to be eaten in South Korea, and advocates say bo-shin-tang, which consists of dog meat boiled in a mix of hot and strong spices and vegetables, is good for the health. It is considered a delicacy by some.

Korean BBQ Trivia + Forage’s Soy and Coca-Cola Flank Steak Recipe
LA Weekly

If you’ve ever wondered if Korean households have dining tables with built in bbq holes, like the ones at Korean bbq restaurants, the answer is “no”. The historical antecedent for modern restaurant tables are traditional Korean kitchens with round stoves (agungi) that were fueled by wood or large cylindrical charcoal briquets. If you clicked on the link, you probably figured out why Korean bbq pans are dome shaped, rather than square or rectangular.

FC Barcelona signs Korean teen for five years
JoongAng Daily

A Korean teenager has signed a five-year contract with FC Barcelona’s youth team, his father revealed Wednesday.

Play Canceled on Account of Suicide Threat
The Korea Times

A nude play has been forced to cancel its performance on July 14 by a male member of the public.

The man threatened to commit suicide if “The Professor and the Female Student 2” goes on stage on that date. He claimed that star actress Um Da-hae, 30, who plays the female student, is “his woman.”

Korean gangsters invade Manila
The Manila Times

THE Philippine National Police (PNP) was warned Monday against the entry into the country of Korean criminal syndicates that wanted to establish their illegal network in the country.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXr6wH7-QC0[/youtube]

Here’s one video from last weekend’s Unforgettable event, taken by our red carpet host, Janice Jann. Watch Three Rivers’ Daniel Henney and Grey’s Anatomy’s Sandra Oh introduce our entertainment award recipient Ken Jeong. What a hot trio!

WED's Links: Asian Ams grab Obama’s attention, Jenna Ushkowitz, SK's 1st Chemical Castration Pedophile; Uglydoll Makers http://t.co/w9gRr0sH

Tuesday's Links: North Korea (again), K-Pop, Author Krys Lee, Man charged with slapping loud kid in theater http://t.co/DhC62HjN

The Ten Most Fashionable Asian-Americans In NYC http://t.co/oTE8EJCN

Just a reminder, the SMTOWN live streaming K-pop concert is going on ... right now! http://t.co/JywXQ91F

I uploaded a @YouTube video http://t.co/NnQFpSdq SMTOWN World Tour - EXO, SHINEE, f(x) Performance P.2