Today, TK Learned:

... Mount Vernon gets ridiculously crowded on Thanksgiving.

• There are four types of criticism against American higher education. All of them are flawed. [Los Angeles Review of Books]
• Should law school pay students to quit? The Korean says yes. [Slate]
• Effort is important, but talent still matters. [New York Times]
• Seoul as a model of urbanized growth. Very insightful. [National Geographic]
• What a Chinese scholar thinks about Korea's unification. [The Interpreter]
• Big international stories that did not receive enough attention this year. [Foreign Policy]

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

50 Most Influential K-Pop Artists: 23. Shin Seung-Hoon

[Series Index]

23. Shin Seung-Hoon [신승훈]

Years of Activity: 1990-present

Discography:
You, Reflected in a Smile [미소 속에 비친 그대] (1990)

Shin Seung Hun Vol. 2 (1992)

Shin Seung Hun Vol. 3 (1993)

For a Long Time Afterwards [그 후로 오랫동안] (1994)

Shin Seung Hun Vol. 5 (1996)

Feeling (1998)

Desire to Fly High (2000)

The Shin Seung Hun (2002)

Ninth Reply (2004)

The Romanticist (2009)

Representative Song:  Invisible Love [보이지 않는 사랑] from Shin Seung Hun Vol. 2.

보이지 않는 사랑
Invisible Love

사랑해선 안 될게 너무 많아
There are too many things I must not love
그래서 더욱 슬퍼지는 것같아
Perhaps that is why it is even sadder
그중에서 가장 슬픈 건
The saddest among all is
날 사랑하지 않는 그대
you who do not love me
내 곁에 있어달라는 말 하지 않았지
I never said be by my side
하지만 떠날 필요 없잖아
But you did not need to leave
보이지 않게 사랑할 거야
I will love you invisibly
너무 슬퍼 눈물 보이지만
Though I may show tears because of overwhelming sorrow

어제는 사랑을 오늘은 이별을
Yesterday, love; today, parting
미소짓는 얼굴로 울고 있었지
Crying with a smiling face
하지만 나 이렇게 슬프게 우는 건
But I cry so sadly like this
내일이면 찾아올 그리움 때문일꺼야
Because of the longing that will come tomorrow

Translation note:  It's not like the lyrics in Korean was the most sophisticated one in the world, but in English they sound terribly childish. Suggestions are welcome, as always.

In 15 words or less:  The king of ballad.

Maybe he should be ranked higher because...  His dominance over his genre was nearly unparalleled, particularly back in the 1990s when ballad was the mainstream music.

Maybe he should be ranked lower because...   Did he have any musical imprint in Korean pop music history?

Why is this artist important?
It is difficult to overstate how huge "ballad" was back in Korean of 1990s. At this point in time, many people believe that air-headed, bubble-gum "k-pop", represented Girls' Generation, Super Junior and the like, constitutes the entirety of Korean pop music. That notion is clearly a mistake, but it is an understandable mistake given that the presence of "k-pop" (in the smaller sense of the word) is so dominant over the airwaves. If the same people were exposed to Korean pop music in the 1990s, they would have thought that the morose and saccharine "ballads" were the only Korean pop music available.

Shin was the eye of the storm of the era. His public presence was rivaled by only a select few on this list. The 17 million copies of his album sold speak for themselves. Although Shin never truly attempted anything artistically daring, he deserves a spot here as a true exemplar of K-pop's zeitgeist.

Interesting trivia:  Shin holds a second degree black belt in kung fu.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Many celebrations of this most American of all American holidays, the holiday of immigrants. The Korean is thankful for an easy year at work, successful 5th anniversary of AAK! and the Korean Brother's engagement to a wonderful woman. Here is what the Korean wrote for last year's Thanksgiving, and the sentiment remains the same this year.

*              *              *

Thanksgiving is the Korean's favorite holiday, and it is a crying shame that it is slowly turning into a mere bump in the road on the way to Christmas shopping. Thanksgiving is the Korean's favorite holiday because it is one of the most American of holidays -- the holiday for immigrants. The day in which Americans, old and new, share a table to fill their body with a hearty bird native to American land.

On the Thanksgiving Day of 1997 -- some 380 years after the Pilgrims -- the Korean Family arrived at the port of Los Angeles International Airport, full of anticipation for the Land of Opportunity. The Korean Family was greeted by natives, the distant family friends who have lived in the U.S. for decades as Korean Americans. And like a beautiful fugue, the pattern repeated once again; the natives helped the immigrants to get settled in, and begin their lives in the new world.

Thus, Thanksgiving Day is doubly special for the Korean Family. We never miss celebrating it. We always get together as a family and reflect on how we have begun -- and succeeded! -- our decade-plus immigrant life in America. We are thankful for all the great things in our lives, but most of all, we are thankful to be in America. Like the Pilgrims who were grateful for their new lives and new opportunities, the Korean Family is grateful, each and every year, for our own new lives and opportunities.

AAK! will be on a break until next week.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

A Conversation

(Driving through Hyundai Heavy Industries in Ulsan.)

The Korean Cousin:  "This is the way up to the lab I work in."

The Korean:  "It's a big hill."

TKC:  "I walk up this hill every morning, at 6 a.m."

TK:  "You have always been so diligent, hyeong."

TKC:  "That's what our family does, working harder than everyone. Your family moved to Seoul early, but I'm a hick, you know. There are all these people who are smarter than me and went to better schools. So this is what I have been doing for the ten years I've been working here. I get to the lab two hours before everyone else does. I open the curtains, clean the office, then I have a quiet time for myself. What do you think I do with that time?"

TK:  "... you would probably study something."

TKC:  "I study English."

TK:  "That's amazing, hyeong."

TKC:  "No it's not, because I'm not getting better. For ten years I've been spending those precious two hours a day of my life studying English, and I'm not getting better. I memorize everything I see, I listen to all these English listening materials, I practice speaking, and I'm not getting better. My test scores are the same, and I don't feel like I'm better at listening or speaking in English.

It's such a waste of time. It's not easy getting up that early. It takes all my dedication and discipline. Those two hours are precious to me. If I spent those two hours a day studying the engineering stuff that I wanted to study, I would be so much happier. I would be a much better engineer too. But I can't do that. People who buy our ships only speak English."

TK:  "... you just gotta keep at it, like you always do ..."

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Korea-U.S. FTA just got ratified in Korea's National Assembly, in a predictably dramatic fashion. (Tear gas! That's new.) The Korean wrote about it on the Marmot's Hole.

Today, TK Learned:

... that good times don't last, he still works for a big law firm, and there will be weeks where he will spend 18 hours at the office every day for a week and beyond.

• For all you poetry lovers, be sure to check out this new blog that provides translated Korean poems. [Korean Poetry in Translation]
• Excellent summary on the history of Korea's economic development, and Korea's challenges for the future. [The Economist]
• LG made "iPad" 10 years ago. Next step: patent lawsuit! [LinuxDevices]
• President Lee Myung-Bak's autobiography is getting hammered in Amazon.com reviews written by Korean people who hate him. [Amazon.com]
• Making unfettered gun rights constitutional means felons can restore their gun rights easily. [New York Times]
• Engineering students study the most. Business students study the least. [New York Times]
• If Scotland declared independence, will it be automatically in the EU? [Eutopia Law]
• Being a fisher is way, way more dangerous than being a police. [Think Progress]
• Napster and online music apparently did not affect the quality of music. [Digitopoly]

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Can You Go to College in Korea? (Take the Exam!)

This past Thursday was the most important day for 690,000 Korean high school seniors -- it was the day of the dreaded College Scholastic Aptitude Test. It is not an exaggeration to say that much of Korean students' lives were dedicated to that one day. Korean society does everything it can to assist the students' test taking. Buses and subways run more frequently, and airplanes are prohibited from taking off or landing during listening comprehension portion of the exam.

CSAT takes up a major portion of college admission, although each college is free to set its own standard of how much CSAT score will be reflected. Colleges generally choose to reflect anywhere between 20% to 100%. To the extent CSAT does not count as 100% of the admission requirements, schools look at: high school GPA; high school attendance; community service; a separate essay exam; interview; audition/tryouts, etc. (Interview and audition/tryouts are usually for students looking to major in athletics or arts.)

CSAT's format changes slightly every year. But basically, CSAT is made up of seven sections: Korean, Math, English, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Occupational Sciences and Second Foreign Language. Students are not supposed to take all seven sections. The way in which test-takers choose the sections to take is slightly complicated, and this is how:

- CSAT is made up of five periods, going from 8:40 a.m. to 6:05 p.m.

- All students take Korean, Math and English in the first three periods. Math is divided into Math A and Math B, and students choose one or the other. Math B is a little easier, but most science/engineering colleges require Math A. There is a one hour lunch period between the second and third periods.

- Fourth period is for "Sciences" sections. Social Sciences section has 11 subjects (e.g., modern Korean history, world geography, economics, etc.) Natural Sciences section has 8 subjects (e.g. physics, chemistry, etc.) Occupational Sciences section has 17 subjects (e.g. accounting, fisheries and maritime, programming, etc.) Students are required to choose one of the sections, depending on the majors for which they plan to apply. Generally, humanities majors choose Social Sciences, science and engineering majors choose Natural Sciences, and those applying for a technical degree at a 2-year college choose Occupational Sciences. Within the section, the student chooses up to three subjects to take. (Last year, it was four.) Generally, colleges require the scores from at least two subjects.

- Fifth period is for the Second Foreign Language section. Second Foreign Language section has eight subjects. Students are not required to take the Second Foreign Language section. But if they choose to take it, they may select one subject in the section. Certain majors (e.g. Chinese literature) require Second Foreign Language in a specific language, and certain colleges allow students to substitute a Second Foreign Language subject with one of the subjects in Social Sciences section.

With that said, here is something that (as far as the Korean knows) has never been done before:  you, an English speaker, can try your hand at taking CSAT in your language. Will you be able to go to college in Korea?

More after the jump.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Today, TK Learned:

... that David Letterman show starts at 11:30 p.m., not 10:30 p.m.

• America produces fewer computer science majors compared to 25 years ago. How is that even possible? [Marginal Revolution]
• This is how -- science majors quit in droves because science is too hard. Pretty damning indictment of just how stupid and soft American students have become. [New York Times]
• Scary lesson from this graph is that China might be even more corrupt than people think. [The Economist]
• Korea's credit rating remains solid. [Bloomberg]
• American generals think the war in Afghanistan is not going that well. [Foreign Policy]
• Supreme Court sometimes does tell the lawyer to just give up. [SCOTUS Blog]

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Suicide in Korea Series: III. Sociology of Suicide in Korea

[Series Index]

Korea's high suicide rates are widely known, and there have been plenty of attempts to explain why Korea has such high suicide rates. The proffered reasons range from the unwillingness to discuss mental health, Korea's cultural trait of "han", celebrity suicide affecting the general public, etc. There may be even a genetic explanation -- a study showed that Asian Americans have relatively less "long genes" that produce serotonin, which regulates mood. But although these reasons may be correct and practically helpful, they fail to understand the fundamental cause of the prevalence of suicide in Korea today.

Why are these reasons inadequate? Because they do not explain the dramatic increase in suicide beginning in the late 1990s. As we discussed in the previous part, Korea actually had a very low rate of suicide as recently as mid-1980s. Currently, the average suicide rate in the OECD is 11.1 per 100,000 people. In 1986, Korea's suicide rate was only 6.6 per 100,000. Even in 1995, Korea's suicide rate was 10.8 per 100,000. Given this data, it does not make sense to blame, for example, Korea's lack of mental health awareness for Korea's incredibly high suicide rate in the recent years. (31 per 100,000 people in 2009.) Korean people had even less awareness in mental health back in 1986, when the suicide rate was less than one quarter of the present day's. It makes even less sense to blame genetics, as Korean people's genetics could not have changed in just less than 30 years. Whatever the answer is to Korea's suicide problem, it lies with what happened with Korea in the last few decades.

(More after the jump)

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Burial or Cremation?

Dear Korean,

Would there be any shame associated with cremating a loved one rather than burying him/her?

White Schoolteacher

Traditionally, Korean people preferred to bury their dead. Traditional funeral in Korea is a big affair, requiring many people dressed up in hemp clothes carrying a lavishly decorated casket, to the family burial ground where the entire family is to be buried. Below is a re-creation of a traditional Korean funeral. The Korean Grandfather's funeral looked like this, because he is from a traditional family.

But all that changed significantly in the last 20 years or so. As traditional family structure weakened, the younger generation decided that it was easier to tend a crypt than a burial plot with grass and a tombstone. Also, the government encouraged cremation and in some cases even provided a subsidy for cremation, as it was concerned about the family burial plots taking up too much land. The result is a dramatic increase in cremation -- from 17.8% of all burials in 1991 to 67.5% in 2010. In particular, overwhelming majority of city folks preferred cremation, compared to rural residents.

So at this point, it's safe to say that there is no shame associated with cremation.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

AAK! PSA: Classic Korean Movie Screening in D.C. This Friday

Here is a nice free screening of Madame Freedom in Washington D.C., this Friday.

Date: Friday, November 4, 2011, 7 p.m. 

Venue:  Meyer Auditorium of Freer Gallery, in the Smithsonian complex.

One of the defining films of the “golden era” of Korean cinema in the 1950s, Madame Freedom was a template for Korean films in the 1960s and influenced them well into this century. This melodrama about marital infidelity was the first large-scale commercial box office success after the Korean War, and it tapped into contemporary tension between modernity and tradition.

In celebration of the reopening of the Freer’s Korea gallery, Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, creates a new score for this classic film combining a string duo and turntables, edited live using his innovative iPad/iPhone mixing software. (Dir.: Han Hyung-mo, Korea, 1956, 125 min., Korean with English subtitles)

Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, is a composer, artist, and writer whose work bridges hip hop, multimedia art, and avant-garde music. His work as a media artist has appeared in the Whitney Biennial as well as at Kunsthalle, Vienna, and the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, among many other museums and galleries. Rebirth of a Nation, his live rescore of D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, was commissioned in 2004 by the Lincoln Center Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, Weiner Festwochen, and the Festival d'Automne a Paris. It has been performed in venues around the world.

For more information, please visit the website of the Freer Gallery.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

If you like Korean music but are sick of the same old idol group fare, get yourself straight to Indieful ROK. And while you are there, you can read the most recent viewer report on 나는 가수다, which now features the Korean's impressions of the show.

Today, TK Learned:

... that the only thing more excruciating than translating a book is editing the translated manuscript of the book.

• One way to defeat surveillance might be providing constant details about where you are to the FBI, all the time. [New York Times]
• Ever wonder why Afghans are not grateful that Americans saved them from Taliban tyranny? This might be a reason why. [CNN]
• "An Egyptian man was severely beaten after an Iraqi gang tried to kidnap and force him to film pornographic videos because of his astonishing resemblance to former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein." [Ahram Online]
• Sugar does not cause hyperactivity in children. [Incidental Economist]
• Asian American students are the most frequently bullied. [AFP]
• Contrast this sentence ... "Only three in 10 U.S. schoolchildren make the grade in reading, the U.S. Education Department said today. Four in 10 passed muster in math." [Business Week]
• ... with this one:  "middle class families in Asian countries spend up to 50% of their income on education for their children – over and above what the state provides, living in smaller homes and driving smaller cars than their US counterparts to provide maximum education for their off-spring." [The Economist]

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.