MV of “Like Being Hit by a Bullet” (총맞은 것처럼) by Korean pop-ballad star Baek Ji-young. The song is featured in her 7th album “Sensibility” which was released on Thursday (Nov 13)…
~590,000 Korean students took their College Scholastic Ability Test (수능 - Suneung) on Thursday (Nov 13)… a day where the students had to endure a gruelling nine-hour tests that would significantly influence their future career prospect.
It’s a day where stock market and offices were opened an hour late to ease the morning traffic; where flights had to be rescheduled during the listening test to avoid the slightest disturbance… and it’s a day where temples and churches were packed with parents praying for good performances from their kids.
Parents praying for their kids in a Seoul temple; and students cheering for their seniors
to do well in the exam (Image from Xinhuanet)
The CSAT would determine which university/college the Korean students would be enrolled to… and the reputation of the universities will make a huge impact on their career path. A student who gets into a top university is almost guaranteed a bright future in their working career.
The larger-than-life exam culture is not entirely unique to Korea; most of the East Asian countries are adopting similar ideology, presumably originated from the Chinese civil servants’ exam in ancient Chinese dynasty some thousand of years ago. The Koreans however seem to be taking the whole idea to its extremity.
Many quarters have criticised that the high pressure of preparing for the CSAT attributes to the high suicide rates of Korean teenagers; while some others are criticising that the system are undermining the students’ creativity and other talents by overemphasising the exam results.
Youth Trekkers Wanted - Taiwan Giving You a Free Hug
The National Youth Commission of Taiwan is organising a contest to promote youth tourism in the island, in which the winners will get a travel allowance of USD1,000 and free air tickets to Taiwan.
The contest is opened to young people (aged 18-30) with the nationality of Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore or Malaysia.
Participants are required to draft a thematic travel plan lasting for over 10 days to interact with the society, culture and environment of Taiwan.
12 winners (two from each country/place) will be awarded the travel allowance of USD1,000 and free return air tickets. There are however a few clauses that the winners have to oblige with… kindly check the contest website for more details.
The contest expiry date is November 30, 2008.
Korean pop group Wonder Girls will be starring in a reality show, “Wonder Bakery” in which they will be pairing up with aspiring bakers to compete for a cash prize of 10 million Won (~USD8,000). Sharing some promotional pics for the programme, which is scheduled to start showing this evening (Nov 5) on Mnet channel…
Some red carpet pics from Korea Drama Awards 2008 which was presented on November 1 at Jinju Castle in Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea…
Grand prize winner Kim Myung-min
Korean pop star Kim Jong-kook is making his comeback after completing his two-year military service in May 2008. He released his 5th album yesterday (Oct 22), titled “Here I am”… should be interesting to see if he still got what it takes to excel in showbiz.
Below is the English subbed music video for the first promotional track, “Today more than Yesterday”. The video is cute; the song was not really appealing at first, but quite nice after listening to it for a few times…
English subbed music video of “Rainisim”, second MV from Korean pop star Rain’s latest (same title) album. Although another MV “Love Story” was released earlier, it seems like Rainisim is the major promotional track instead…
Hallyu stars are dominating the Japanese Oricon singles chart for the past two weeks. The Koreans claimed the top three spots at the singles’ sales chart last week, and keeping their momentum with three of the top four spots this week.
Pop group TVXQ (known as Tōhōshinki in Japan) tops the singles’ sales chart for two consecutive weeks with their 24th Japanese single “Jumon-Mirotic”. This is their 4th chart topping Japanese single in 2008.
Actor turn singer Lee Byung-hun claims the 2nd spot also for two weeks in a role with his debut single, “Itsuka”; while Ryu Si-won dropping from 3rd to 4th with his 8th single “Kimito Boku”.
To be frank, I’m quite puzzled how the songs managed to lead the charts. I can understand that Mirotic is appealing to some audiences (although not to my liking), but the other two are just so average. Anyhow, sharing all three music videos below…