This being the week of romance, allow me to repost this 2005 Mis en scène commercial featuring Ha Ji-won (하지원) and Jo In-sung (조인성), still the sexiest Korean commercial ever.
Apologies for the poor quality, but unfortunately this copy of mine appears to be the only one available. I have found (via A Koala’s Playground) a good copy of the 15-second version though, but, alas, you really need more of a build-up to fully appreciate Ha Ji-won’s smouldering stares!^^
• V-Men Auditions in Busan, Sunday the 19th (Busan Haps)
• Marriage and tears in Joseon Korea (The Marmot’s Hole)
• All Camp in Korea (Bathhouse Ballads)
• While Brazil Telenovelas Shrink Families, Jdramas Seek to Expand Them? (YAM)
• Does Confucianism have a place in modern Korea? (The Korea Herald; hat tip to Colette Balmain)
• The Korean Look Travels Well in China (The Three Wise Monkeys)
• Brian’s “Let This Die” MV: Romanticizing Violence In Korean Media (Musical Dialect)
• Cesarean Nation: The cautionary tale of how China came to have the world’s highest C-section rate (Slate)
• Brokered marriages hurt husbands, too (Korea Joongang Daily)
• The Baby Owner’s Manual: Operating Instructions, Trouble-Shooting Tips, and Advice on First-Year Maintenance (Geek in Heels)
• Itaewon in 1984: A paradise for foreign gypsies that lead Korean women astray (Gusts of Popular Feeling)
• Putting the fun into feminism (The Sydney Morning Herald; via: Blog in a Tea Cup)
• DONA-International Workshops for Birth and Postpartum Doulas (10Magazine)
• K-Pop and Consumer Nationalism (Seoulbeats)
• Middle school students to spend more time on physical education (The Hankyoreh)
• How young is too young to model? (Work That Matters)
(Links are not necessarily endorsements)
The Grand Narrative 
typo?
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Er….thanks I guess. But could you be a little more specific please?
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Found it – have changed “sexist” to “sexiest”.
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On February 15th Jenny Hyun, a Korean-American songwriter who has written for SNSD and Chocolat, embarked on an epic racist rant on Twitter “calling for the extermination of all black people”. According to omona, “She had previously tweeted about the intellectual superiority of pale people.”
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Thanks, was just reading about that myself. Here’s more on it from Asian Junkie and Feminoonas (and here also).
In other race and K-pop related news, SNSD Free for all and Omona also have stuff on Allkpop’s post on why half-Black, half-Korean “Michelle Lee will not win ‘K-POP Star’ “.
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Just had a fuller look at Jenny Hyun’s tweets–they are so off the wall and beyond the pale, that I think there is a lot of truth to the statement of one of the bloggers that she has revealed herself as “mentally unstable.” I’ve had the misfortune to witness someone close to me experience a psychotic break as a result of a bipolar disorder. The speed, the paranoia and the inappropriateness of what she put up on Twitter, some of it sexual, makes me hope that people near her are getting her into care as quickly as possible, because these are pretty classic symptoms. When people do something this crazy–it’s generally because they are. I’ve seen it. It’s very sad. What she said is absolutely reprehensible but before people are too quick to judge and hate, give a thought to the fact that she is almost certainly very ill and Twitter unfortunately can now broadcast mania to the world at large.
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Dear all,
Well, I’m also sad that I did call this and that she and her family and friends have to suffer through this, but it’s good to know that she is getting the treatment she needs: http://jennyhyun.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/apology-to-all/
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Don’t really know what to add to those sorry, but thanks for passing on your first-hand knowledge, and which should come with even more weight given your identification of her mental problems well before they became public. To my surprise and disappointment though, it seems that most commentators won’t even consider the possibility that they might be genuine.
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The PE thing is supposedly in hopes of curbing an increase in bad and violent behavior since corporal punishment is on the outs. Or at least that’s the word around school.
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Thanks – I’d never have guessed. Not exactly the best method of dealing with it of course, but it can’t harm. And my daughters at least definitely get very crabby if they’re not allowed to run around the apartment for a couple of hours each night!
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James, it looks like people are beginning to give her a bit more credence as more info comes out. Lots of credit to gbnhj at The Marmot’s Hole for uncovering this post of hers:
http://jennyhyun.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/nirvana-moment/
which really corroborates that this is a talented woman struggling with serious mental illness: cf. the well-written reflections on her condition and awareness of the genetic component with the dissociative madness of the tweets…..My heart goes out.
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