All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.
I just pencil-edited Minister Ban Ki-moon’s acceptance speech for the United Nations Secretary-Generalship. I have no idea whether any of my edits and interpolations will make it into the final draft, but when Ban stands at that rostrum and delivers his speech, I’ll know that I had a hand in. It’s my tiny little sliver of history, and I’m excited about it.
A link to the speech will of course be provided once it has been delivered.
The Guardian assesses the “faceless” Ban Ki-moon.
Actually, it’s a very informative article. My main quibble is in blaming low staff morale on the choice of Ban Ki-moon. No, his selection hasn’t immediately fired up the troops, but at the moment he’s working with damp wood anyway. The morale of UN staff has been low ever since the reform movement got rolling, and possibly since before then. They work for stagnant wages in crumbling, overcrowded, underheated, under-air-conditioned buildings, in a bureaucratic environment that rewards very little. Kofi Annan hasn’t managed to fix this problem, so laying their depression at Ban’s feet seems a bit unfair.
Today’s top story involving Korea ought to be Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon’s likely appointment as UN Secretary-General.
Indeed, last night’s annual reception for National Foundation Day was packed, attended by far more dignitaries, of far higher rank, than in past years. United States Ambassador John Bolton was there — Jenny remarked that he is shorter than she expected — as were the ambassadors of the other permanent members of the Security Council, as well as Japan’s ambassador, who is currently the president of the Council. The big crowd was there, I am certain, because of the news that had come out less than an hour before the reception began that South Korea would be providing the next SG. Already the appointment was having one of its desired effects: raising South Korea’s profile in the world.
At the moment, however, the big Korea news is that the North is planning a nuclear test. The timing is fairly typical of North Korea — these are the same people who managed to stage a naval incident in 2002, killing four South Korean sailors right around the climax of the World Cup hosted in South Korea. Whether today’s announcement is meant to derail Minister Ban’s appointment or merely overshadow it is unclear, but it is certainly bad news.
So it looks like Ban is the man. In today’s final Security Council straw poll to determine who the Security Council will recommend for Secretary-General, Minister Ban Ki-moon of South Korea received only one “Discourage” vote, and received “Encourage” votes from all five permanent members — the only Security Council members with veto power.
So barring either a surprise shift in the Security Council or an even more unlikely rebellion by the General Assembly, which ultimately has the decisionmaking power — technically, the Security Council only recommends candidates, though historically they have recommended just one for an up-or-down vote by the General Assembly — Ban Ki-moon will be the next United Nations Secretary-General.
Update: New York Times says “Korean Virtually Assured of Top Job at U.N.“
At very long last, I think I’ve found an online copy of the video for “Muomnika?” (“뭡니까?”) by Shim Tae-yoon (심태윤) that can actually be watched by people without the South Korean citizen ID number required to log in to many Korean sites.
Go here and click on the image of the guy with the afro who’s saluting.
Once you’ve installed all the various ActiveX controls, you should see an unattractive man chatting amiably in a language you don’t understand. Be patient. He babbles for a minute or two, but then comes the video. It’s not exactly genius or anything, but it’s a helluva catchy tune, and Shim’s goofy little dance, silly afro and M-pants are what it’s really all about. That and the Korean raggamuffin rapper with the fur gloves.
Oh, and just so you know, the name of the song means “What is it?”
Some time back, I told you about MTV Desi and MTV Chi, for the South Asian-American and Chinese-American markets respectively, and I mentioned that MTV-K was in the works.
MTV-K is now here.
And, as with the other two stations, I have helpfully done the work of combing through the top-ten candidate videos, weeding out the weepy piano ballads, the overblown hip-hop extravaganzas and the talentless girl bands who mostly shake their tiny, tiny booties, and leaving you with only the gems (or at least the bearable videos).
NB that this is an IE-only exercise, and that I can’t link directly to the videos, so you just have to go to the site and click on them yourself.
Big Mama have gotten a lot of attention for being overweight, ordinary-looking women with great voices in a country whose music industry has tended to reward beauty over talent. “Break Away” was their breakthrough single.
Bobby Kim has a pleasant enough voice, and “Falling in Love” is a pleasant enough song, with a pleasant enough video. Get the idea? Perfectly pleasant. Not bad. Not great, but nice. The sort of song that you would let date your daughter but not marry her.
Far East Movement is a SoCal hip-hop trio, of whom two members are Korean and one is Japanese and Chinese. They apparently did a song for Fast and Furious II: Tokyo Drift, which I somehow managed not to see. “Holla Hey” is good silly fun.
If you love Shakira’s rock numbers, you’ll like Jaurim’s “Fan Yi Ya.” Enjoy a video of an English version at their MySpace site.
“Obvious (Want You)” is a nice little punk dis from a girl who can play bass. Check out Maggie Kim’s website for her cover of “Raspberry Beret.”
And there you have it. Enjoy.
아름다음 강산 (Beautiful Rivers and Mountains) by Lee Sun Hee (이선희)
Note: To view the videos, click on the links next to the light-blue words on the left, in the third section down from the top. Especially worthwhile is the third such link (이선희 - 아름다운 강산, 아카라카치, for those who read Korean or like to sqint) You will need to install an ActiveX control, and if you’re using Firefox, you’ll need to restart afterwards. IE is a better bet. Sorry it’s so much trouble!
Okay, you’re probably sick to death of hearing about “Beautiful Rivers and Mountains” by now, but here are three versions by the sexiest Korean woman ever, Lee Sung Hee, who has become something of a feminist hero simply for looking like an actual human being, with glasses and human hair, instead of like your typical K-pop starlets, who are all rail-thin and have fake hair. (I suppose it’s no surprise that prefer the nerdy girl in glasses with the powerhouse talent underneath to the vacuous beauty queens.)
Of particular interest is the third link in the list, in which Lee performs for a World Cup crowd in 2002. It’s kind of amazing to see this song, once regarded as a subversive attack on the state, performed as the centerpiece of a gigantic nationalist pageant. But then, it was also weird seeing thousands upon thousands of South Koreans urging each other to “Be the Reds.” As I have said before, a sense of irony is not Korea’s strong suit.
The video chain’s founder, Korean-born Yongman Kim, dropped out of an NYU Film School class that included Jim Jarmusch and Lees Ang and Spike. He has now at last gotten around to making his own film debut as director of 1/3, a psychological thriller set in the East Village and involving both a Buddhist monk and the snorting of cocaine from off someone’s ass.
The film opens in New York City on Friday, October 6, at City
Cinemas Village East.
At last! At last I have it! From the Koryo Bookstore on West 32nd Street, I have procured a region-free, English-subtitled edition of the first Korean movie I ever saw, and one that I have wanted to see again ever since: Barking Dogs Never Bite, a.k.a. A Higher Animal, a.k.a. Dog of Flanders. More when I’ve actually re-watched it.
It was Elizabeth Barrett Browning who asked every English major’s favorite math question: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” It is, of course, a question the poem utterly fails to answer, or even adequately explain.
If Browning were Korean, however, she might be able to put a number on it, or at least on the number of ways to say you love someone.
It all comes down to verb endings and their proliferation in Korean. I’m sure you’re comfortable enough with verb conjugations that change the tense or person, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Roadmap to Korean: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Language, by Richard Harris, provides a list of 18 different ways to say “I’m going to school” and 23 ways to ask “Do you know?”. That’s all with the same verb root, in the same tense and person. The shifts change the levels of politeness and formality, and some of them have subtle meaning shifts as well, like expressing surprise or leaving an open-ended feeling.
Fortunately, most of these verb endings are relatively rare. Still, it’s discoveries like these that make me worry I’ll never really grasp this language.