The Iceberg

The Korea Times reports that Choongahm High School in Seoul has implemented a system where students are allowed to choose their homeroom teacher online. The idea is that it will provide officials a tool for evaluating teachers. Of course, the problem with the plan is that the students doing the choosing were all incoming freshman who I presume wouldn’t know much about the teachers. Then again, the school posted each teacher’s profile and photograph on the school website to help students make up their minds. One teacher’s class was full within a minute. My guess is the teacher looks a little somethin’ like this.

It looks like Park Jin-young is serious about taking on the nationalist pride that springs from the “Korean Wave”. Following up on his comments to the Joongang-Ilbo (and covered by the Lost Nomad), Korea’s number one music producer (and quite a talented performer himself back in the day) wrote a column in the Chosun Ilbo explaining why “he wants no part of the Korean Wave“:

“It’s fine if people abroad use the term “Korean Wave.” But should we label our own pop culture that way? Should it really be for us to draw on it as a source of pride or dignity?”

Will Mr. Park prove to be a catalyst for a change of self-perception in Korean society? Or will the treacherous sludge known as “group think” prove too overwhelming…absorbing and crushing him in the process?

Stay tuned.

According to this report from the Joongang Daily.

The Chosun Ilbo reports that some close to recently deceased actress Jeong Da-bin believe she may have been a victim of foul play.

This is certainly bad news:

YEOSU, South Korea, Feb. 11 (Yonhap) — At least nine foreigners were killed and 18 others injured in a pre-dawn fire that engulfed an immigration detention center in southern South Korea on Sunday, police said.

The article states that a short circuit from a television set on the third floor of the detention center was thought to be the cause of the fire, but police believe the fire may have been a result of arson:

Police are also looking at the possibility of arson, as closed circuit television (CCTV) footage shows a foreign detainee covering a CCTV camera on the floor with wet toilet paper just before the fire broke out.

“The detainee was stopped by center officials from putting wet toilet paper on a CCTV camera several times the previous day,” said Kim Jang-whan, head of the police station in Yeosu. “He covered a CCTV camera about five to eight minutes before the fire occurred.”

Someone’s head is going to roll.

Two months ago I reported that photos of Korean singer/actress Unee, a favorite at The Iceberg, were mistakenly described by Singaporean media as images of a Mongolian model who had been murdered in Malaysia. Thankfully, at the time, it was all a mix-up and Unee was alive and well.

Today, the news is not so good. Unee took her life yesterday.

As one who has experienced the loss of a friend through suicide recently, I’d like to stress that this is not something to be flippant about. My condolences to Unee’s family and friends.

Rest in peace, Unee.

I don’t know actress Lee Mi-yeon (이미연) personally, so I can’t say this with 100 percent certainty, but if this interview with the Chosun Ilbo is any indication, Ms. Lee may not be the nicest person in the world. Some quotes from the article left me shaking my head. For starters:

“Acting has produced the biggest energy and the greatest pain in my life. I can’t promise you that I’m going to be an actress for the rest of my life. When I fall out of love with acting, I’ll quit immediately.”

Oh please promise, Mi-yeon, that you’ll be an actress for the rest of your life. Pretty please! We need you. At least promise that you’ll continue to appear in commercials at least three times a year.

“It is dangerous for an actor to feature in too many TV commercials.”

Of course, this doesn’t apply to her,

“People seem to have been looking out for me even during my break because of my healthy image.”

Whew! That’s a relief. Now that that’s settled, let’s move on to her latest television drama, “Crazy Over Love”. The premise seems a stretch; she plays a woman who falls in love with the man who killed her fiance in an accident the day before the wedding. Wow! That must have taken some serious acting to pull that off. I mean, even Ms. Lee admits,

“I still think nothing is more difficult than love.”

Damn straight! Making love work is hard enough in the most ideal of circumstances, let alone when it involves exchanging sweet nothings with the person who is responsible for KILLING YOUR FIANCE. Personally, I’d have trouble putting that out of my mind whenever the time came to drop my drawers to the floor, but Ms. Lee disagrees,

“Well, love isn’t rational. I don’t think such things are impossible.”

Suhweet! There is a Korean proverb that says, “Just because there is a goalkeeper doesn’t mean you can’t score a goal.” Add Ms. Lee’s philosophy to the equation and you can take it a step further: Rub out the goalkeeper and you can score as many goals as you damn well please.

(Thank you, God, for replacing the love of my life with the man responsible for his death.)

But I digress. Confronted with such a difficult role, isn’t it important to develop on-screen chemistry with the male lead? Umm, maybe not. Here are Ms. Lee’s thoughts on singer-turned-actor co-star Yun Gye-sang,

“It’s more difficult to partner with Yun than with more experienced actors such as Han Seok-gyu or Park Shin-yang. I have to think more this time.”

Ouch! Take that, Mr. Yun! Don’t quit your day job. Hehehe.

(For you doubters out there, I’ve provided a couple of photos of Ms. Lee thinking more on the set of her new drama.)

Difficult as it may be to believe, Ms. Lee was not always the quality actress that she is today,

“I still feel sorry that I started my career when I was completely unprepared.”

Indeed, she was so unprepared that she was duped into becoming the Korean Demi Moore™ (”St. Elmo’s Fire” version).

But she persevered, and by combining self-confidence and a positive attitude…

“I picked out a movie based on a novel by the famous writer Gong Ji-young and made a fresh start. I think it was at that time that my performance improved. I received a lot of praise. In ‘Number 3′ (1997) and ‘Whispering Corridors’ (1998), people thought I was in a supporting role, but I felt I played the lead.”

with hard work…

“I still can’t forget how hard it was when I did interviews with young girls eight times a day for ‘Whispering Corridors.’”

she became the woman whom today we all beg to promise us she will never give up acting.

Alas, life is not perfect for Ms. Lee. When one is as beloved as she is, nasty rumors borne of jealousy are naturally unavoidable. Whenever Ms. Lee is confronted with such rumors, she no doubt looks and feels something like this…

One such evil, nasty, and entirely whacked rumor is that she berates younger colleagues if they don’t give her enough respect. Ms. Lee says that couldn’t be further from the truth,

“People who really know me say I’m really a gentle woman. - (Refer to previous photo…See?) - But since an actor called me the female Choi Min-su, things have got quite nasty. I’ve never scolded young actors. If I were really like Choi Min-su, going my own way without minding how others view me, life would be much easier.”

Exactly! However, a word of advice to all of you young punks out there. Mind your “nays” and “yos”, lest you be gettin’ the look that goes a little somethin’ like this…

As I mentioned at the start of this post, I don’t know Lee Mi-yeon personally, so my evaluation of her character could be completely off base. So, Mi-yeon, if you read this, I’d be happy to get to know you over dinner and (many) drinks…all in the name of truth and accuracy.

Sorry…Mi-yeon “Ssi”…

Reuters reports in this article that senior diplomats from China, Japan, and South Korea agreed that relations between the three countries have markedly improved over the past few months and each “should seize this favorable period to strive to develop a new outlook of cooperation between the three countries.”

Makes one sense that the next big controversy is just around the corner.

And so I bring you this headline from the Chosun Ilbo,

Silky Chickens Run For Cover

To avoid being casualties of the bird flu scare. Still, if you want to be completely safe from bird flu, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to choke your silky chicken.

UPDATE - Here’s a recent article from The Electric New Paper that discusses Unee and the mix-up. 

Curious as to why my blog was suddenly receiving hundreds of new hits per day from searches for Korean singer/actress/marvel of modern science Unee, I did a quick Google search and discovered that her photo appeared last week on the front page of The Sunday Times in Singapore.  Printed along with the photo was the headline, “Is this her?”, referring to the Mongolian model who was blown up in Kuala Lumpur last week.

Rest easy, my dear readers.  Unee and her fake breasts are safe and sound.