Busan become Boston of Korea!

In my opinion Busan and Boston have lots of simularity. One thing is that they are both a harbor city, but that’s not the point.

The thing that I want my city(Busan) to learn from Boston is the sport. Boston is becoming the sports city of America. New York used to be the centre, with New York Yankees which was the most famous baseball team around the whole globe and they had New York Knicks, which became a standard basketball team in movies with all the guy characters saying “I’m going to the Knicks game”(is it only me that heard this line too many times?).  But the media says that Boston is becoming the new sports centre of America. With Boston Redsox which become the champion of MBL and Boston Celtics which is flying high in the NBL. They didn’t win the NFL though, the New York became the champion this season lol.

Anyhow I want Busan to be more like Boston. I don’t want Busan to be a sports center for all the sports like valleyball and stuff but I want it to be the center for soccer and baseball and basketball because they have enough potential. Soccer is not so popular in Busan but they bought the legendary star player, Ahn Jung Hwan, this season so they might turn the tables around. Baseball always had the most fans in Korea, but the team did not do well, it’s been over 8 years since the baseball team of Busan got into post-season. Basketball team is just the middle, they once did well but this season they have moderate amount of audience and not-so-well results. I want Busan to be the center of these 3 most beloved sports, because I always just love going to stadiums to watch games for real, but the teams are just not doing well enough for me to use my money on tickets….

The match with Turkmenistan

On Feburary the 2nd Korean soccer team had worldcup preliminary match with Turkmenistan. We brought in all the English premiere leaguers except Lee Dong Gook.

The reason why we brought them all in was because our team, made of top players of K-league(Korean soccer league) cannot score! Before that match Korean team was making the record for the longest unscoring game, out national team couldn’t score for 520 minutes or something!!!

Anyway Ji Sung, Park and Young Peo, Lee and Ki Hyun, Seol did their jobs. It had been a long time since I seen such an advanced soccer game from our national soccer team.

Seol’s cross was fantastic, Park’s stamina and pass was unbelievable, and the unstable defense of Korea was back to it’s place thanks to Young Peo,Lee.

However one thing that worries me is that most of the fine work was due to premiere leaguers. The players from K-league did show what they got but only with those three premiere leaguers watching their back…

We can’t bring them from England everytime we have an A-match, so Huh(our manager)needs to find a way to play without the help of premiere leaguers.

The Curse of Lee??

There is something called the curse of Lee. The Lee that they mention is Lee Young Peo of Tottenham Hotspurs. The curse is that every player that competes with Lee in position competetion is some how disadvantaged. The curse goes like this:

Garres Bale: A bright young left back from Irish is out for a long time

Benoit Assou Ekotto: He is season-out

Gilverto de Silva Melo: he failed the medical test..

It is third season for Lee in English Premiere league. He is very consistant and hard working, I am very happy to see that someone up above helps him(or something lol). I known Lee will do better and better. I will always be watching Tottenham games lol

FT Island

I’m not one of those people that always talks badly about celebrities.But there is one group that I just cannot control myself from denouncing.You can infer from the title, they are called FT Island.

There are two most famous music entertainment corporations in Korea, one is called SM and the other is called JYP.JYP scouts more of a vocal than facial and SM is well-known to pick singers with more of a face and less of a vocal.

The group FT Island is the standard SM singer. But the thing is I don’t hate them because they are just handsome boys that can’t really sing, actually when I hear them sing, they aren’t that bad.

The reason I hate them is because they call themselves rockband. When they are live on tv in some music program they don’t play the instrument for real, they do something called “handsync” some people say that it’s becuase the stage environment in Korea is too bad to play instrument live.

I have to admit that stages in Korea aren’t the best, and because of that some of the most legendary rockers sometime handsync as well, but even they always try to play live, they don’t attend those music programs usually and they prefer to play underground where they can play live. But FT Island they are always on tv in music programs and defend themselves that the stage isn’t good enough. I can see that they like money more than music…

The rock business is not the most prosperous business, actually they are the most hungry business in Korea. Some rockers starve to go on stage and play live but I cannot believe that FT island is paid lots of money and play handsync. If they ever call themselves a rocker again I could really explode.

Fraud Fraud Fraud….

I do a lot of internet activities so when I have something to buy, I use the internet to do so. I sometimes felt conscious about those internet fraud , but when I saw those news about fraud I thought that those people who are fooled are the ones that are stupid. I thought I was smarter than them. You see how I used “thought” not “think”? I become one of those people who I called stupid….The thing is, I wanted to buy a used phone. So I wrote in one cafe, where people join to sell and buy used stuff, that I’m willing to buy a phone. Somebody mailed me. He was selling it to me way below the usual price! I was doubtful about this guy because he wouldn’t tell me his phone number nor address, but he said that he was going back to the army to serve his time(you see guys in Korea has to go to army for 2 years because our country is still on war). I wanted the phone so bad and the price was something that come only once in a life time(unless the conditions are real bad but he said he used phone for like 2 weeks). So I asked my mother to deposit, my mom was more doubtful than I was but she did it for my sake. Well after the banking was over, he was nowhere to be found and I had no how to contact…..I learnt two things. One that strangers weren’t as trustworthy as I thought. Two that I’m not as smart as I thought I would be…. Well I feel lucky that I went through something like this in my early years, before I make some stupid deal with stranger in my later years with only more cash involved…Thanks jesus if you are really up there….

Will America’s sub prime mortgage effect Korea gradually?

I guess one of the hottest issue is the America’s sub-prime mortgage problem. With America’s economy collapsing, the entire world has started to go downhill. Korea is obviously one of those entire-world-countries. From about a week ago Korea’s economy started to collapse fast. KOSPI(Korean Composite Stock Price Index) went from 1800 to 1700 to 1600 in matter of days, and than the news told us that we broke the record of lowest KOSPI, when the rate went down to 1500’s. I’m not that old enough to understand how the economy works, but I could see that it’s not going very well from the dark expressions of my parents. How is America handling this problem, and can anyone explain to me how and when this crisis will be handled?

may someone could mail me at dltmdgkr2378@naver.com

What the hell Mr.Nah?!?!

Recently there has been a very disturbing rumor . It was about a singer called Nah Hun Ah. This guy is like a legend in Korean music business, he is one of the top 4 most popular singers of all time. He is 60 years old now, so the generation of my grandpa and grandma just loves this guy. But the disturbing rumor that I’m talking about is nothing respectful. The thing is that Nah was involved in some gangster activity. It is well known that Mr. Nah is a lascivious man. He has record of stealing someone’s wife, and people say that someone was shocked and now lives on life addicted with gambling and debts. But the thing is that Mr. Nah touched the wrong girl this time.  According to the rumors, Mr.Nah flirted with some actress(there are two specific actresses in accusation, Kim Hae Su and Kim Sun Ah, but no one knows who it really is) and that actress was the girlfriend of a Yakuza(Japanese gangster) boss. And when the Yakuza boss fund out about this he cut Mr.Nah’s testicles and gave it to him to do whatever. That’s why he’s been out of contact recently, to get a surgery overseas. This rumor was first suggested by some reporter and spread quick.I think that  Mr.Nah was out of contact for almost an year and reporters knew that he was lascivous so they try to connect something that would cause him to disappear, and they thought of Yakuza!! I think reporters in Korea have talent to become a novelist or something, they make some crazy story out of very little evidence they got, and it’s very convincing too!! When I first got to know about this I wondered if it was true! Than I think it over and thought, why would somebody that has their testicles cut off, go overseas to get a surgery? Wouldn’t they bleed?? However I think every article that those damn fiction reporters give us in Korea needs a proofreading, I hope they hire more realistic reporter from now on.

Lee and his public pledges-747

Lee’s most recent promise to the public is the 747 policy. 747 means 7% economy growth, and after 10 years annual income growth will rise to  $40,000  and economy to be ranked above 7th in the world economy rankings. Some say there are a lot of problem with it. According to few research organizations the potential economic growth of Korea was 4~5% and they say that if the practical growth over runs the potential growth,  it will lead to inflation. They say say that Lee’s promise about 7% economic growth is a play to fool the citizens. There are a lot of doubts about the $40,000 annual income as well. The thing is that Koreans’ annual income grew from $10,000(2000) to $20,000(2007) and the growth has only enlarge the gap between the rich and the poor. The opposite say that Lee’s economic growth will only benefit the poor and disadvantage the poor. Lee’s promise that Korea will ranking is also becoming a problem as well. Researchers say that even if we are be able to pull off the 7% economy growth in ten years we won’t be able to get into the top 7 because in ten years we than will reach the economy of Italy right now (in 2007), so unless we pull off to grow more than 7% a year, it is impossible. It is for sure that their is no unanymity in Lee’s actions. He had it coming when he campained on such a extreme(in some aspects) pledges. I personally advocate Lee because he is able to pull off things he promised. I’m sure Korea will rank the 7th in 10 years….I hope….lol

Mania anyone~?

Like I’ve said before, game industry is massive in Korea. That’ why the web site called Item Mania came to place. This Mania is a web site where people trade game items and game money for real money. Unlike America or Canada or the Western countries, where people enjoy playing single games, like X-box, playstation, and Nintentdo (although a lot of them provides multiplayer games but still most of the games are single, right?) people in Korea, Japan and China seem to play internet games more. Koreans are all about internet games.But something that bothers me is that most of the people that use Mania is young. My friends who play games (who are 16) always use them, and a lot of elementary school kids use them too! However, the prices of these items are unbelievable as well. I thought I could buy most item under 10~20 dollars, but it obviously wasn’t. The price goes up to 2000 dollars, that’s the most expensive I’ve seen(it was selling level 90, out of 99, charcter with full set item). I’m worried that young people might waste their money to play games, I hope they don’t miss use this system.

I wonder, girls~!

There are something called the “Big 3″ when it comes to idol stars in Korea. The groups are Big Bang, which is a boy band with 5 members. Girls Era, which is girl-group, wich something like 9 members. Last but not least, Wondergirls, also a girl-group, with 5 member. In this article, I won’t go deep into introducing Big Bang, becuase I have no doubt why they successed, they have great vocals and shiny faces. Now something that I don’t feel comfortable about is the girls. The difference between two girls groups is the target audience. The group Girls’ Era’s main target is the younger people, like elementary school kids. I’m not a specialist on analyzing celebrities but you can kinda infer from the custom that they are wearing. Usually they have these Santa Clause outfits and all those customs that you have gotta be young to enjoy. If you live in Korea you can also infer that their target audience is the young kids, because they are the only ones singing those songs! This is nothing that of great accuracy, but my experience, that my friends who are in middle school, nobody listens to them. But some kids that I know that goes to elementary school, I hear them singing their song every goddamn time I see them. May be I’m friends with some weird people but still those people gave me an impression that Girl’s Era targeted young. However Wondergirls are kinda different. Their concept is a bit sexy and classic at the same time. Now most people around me have listen to their music, whether they like it or not, because they play the friggin’ song over and over again on television. I gotta say their music was pretty adictive, but these girls seem to have some problem too. You see the youngest member of the team is like 17 years old. Now it ain’t so comfortable when you watch these girls that should be at their school, on stage wearing sexy outfits and dancing. Further more I think I wrote about this problem, but their vocals are on the chopping block as well. The thing is that these girls became so famous in no time that they couldn’t handle the penalty of popularity. They are in lots of commercials and they are hottest guest for a lot of television shows. That’s why they were caught making mistakes on their songs on live music shows. Some people ask them to lip-sync, because they don’ t wanna see no more mistakes by people who call themsleves “singers”. I think all of those idol stars have great potential, that enough to conquer the entertainment business all around the globe, I just hope they stay on one path to reach there.