Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Bits and pieces

Comedian Jeong Chan-u got more of a response than he bargained for when he appeared on 'Cult Two's Veranda Show' on MBC on Tuesday wearing the sweater seen below, causing controversy. Netizens weren't impressed, saying they were reminded of Japanese war crimes, and that even if it was unintentional he should have seen such a response coming, and so he apologized on twitter yesterday for causing offense.

(Also regarding MBC, someone decided to have some fun when an MBC program censored the breasts in Botticelli's The Birth of Venus.)

Speaking of controversy, a week ago it was reported that a restaurant in Itaewon had caused controversy by naming a fried chicken dish 'Heukhyeong,' or 'black big brother.' Mike Hurt dug to the bottom of this and found that it had been blown out of proportion by an irresponsible media outlet. It's nice to see Mike back to regular blogging.

On the topi of restaurants and eating, Gord Sellar has written a post placing the 먹방, or 'broadcast eating' in context, as well as another looking at why good restaurants so often go bad in the Seoul area.

As well, this interview with the elderly Chae Hyun-gook, a fascinating, if mostly unknown, figure who financially supported aspects of the democracy movement in the 1970s and 1980s is well worth reading. I liked this:
The worst of all is politicians who are desperate for strife. Ideologies and any other things are not important. They just can’t stand amicable relationships and are in need of discord to be influential.
Exactly.

At the other end of the age scale, I also found these personal looks by a young woman at the influence of her father on her decision to become a journalist and on his work with the Korea Center for Investigative Journalism worth reading.

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