Category Archives: Popular Media - Page 3

Dream Concert crowd yelled ‘Park Jaebum’ non-stop through 2PM

Posted by mstrum on May 25, 2010 2 comments

I just remembered this and thought it deserves it’s own post. For those that didn’t go to Dream Concert, the crowed yelled ‘Park Jay-Bum’ the WHOLE time 2PM sang. For those that don’t know who he is, basically he was thrown out of a group after a ‘scandal’ where text was found complaining about Korea (he went to Korea from the US). Take it how you will, but to me it’s pretty offensive to the current group. If they had shouted his name just between songs I could understand that, but why do you have to scream his name the entire freaking time they’re singing? Here’s someone else’s cam:

Dream Concert 2010 Pics and Video

Posted by mstrum on May 23, 2010 1 comment

Well, I guess I never have to go to another concert in Korea again! (Well, maybe Big Bang) Dream Concert was a great opportunity to see just about every major k-pop band out there in one sitting. Sure, I had to survive the screams of teens and tweens, but it was well worth it.

Between / 사이에서 (Documentary on modern Shamanism)

Posted by mstrum on May 20, 2010 1 comment

For those interested in seeing modern shamanism in practice, check out the Documentary titled Between (사이에서). It shows the journey of a woman as she goes through the rites to become a Shaman along with other regular rituals going on in the town. Some of the more interesting things was one of the shamans danced with and smacked dead animals after which the shaman stabs a dead pig in its belly and proceeds to lick the knife. Oh yeah, and afterwards the same person twists a chicken’s head off. Other than that there are various times when someone would talk for a spirit said to posses them. Shamanism seems to be in a hard place, despised and yet counted on. The wiki page linked below states that the government discouraged superstitions like shamanistic rituals yet cut back on that after recognizing some valuable cultural properties. If that topic interests you at all, check out this documentary to see the real rituals taken place.

Also click here to read more about Korean shamanism.

SNU ComSee 2010 (서울대 컴퓨터공학부 총MT)

Posted by mstrum on May 8, 2010 No comments

There we go, I did my first MT and department MT in the same week! We took buses out to Vivaldi Park in Kangwon which is apparently a famous resort. I was surprised when some people I talked to about it knew what it was. The two main attractions there are the ski slopes and the water park so there’s something to do year round.

We played a game where we ran around the park finding puzzles and solving them along with a few physical games in between. The winners got something like 100,000 Won for their team to use in the mart for booze and food along with 10,000 for each person. We didn’t win but it was fun nevertheless. After that we sat down and had a mini concert by IU, December and 4men:

We left to have dinner and came back for a small presentation from Google and then had a question and answer session with the professors. The questions were very different than what you might expect like asking the professor and his wife to tell the good and bad points about each other. To end the night we went and bought the alcohol and food for the remainder of the night. I started in a room with my group and professor Ian McKay. After a while the room got really hot and there were way too many people so I went to another room with a friend from one of my classes. Lucky for me that room had one of the groups that got the extra money so they had some special items =). By 2 I decided to go to the room I would be sleeping in and hung out with that group until 5. Somehow I woke up at 9 AM, but I ate breakfast and went back to bed. We were one of the last ones out of our rooms and made it to the buses before they left at 11.

All in all it was a very fun experience! I got to meet more people from my classes and department I didn’t know before and get closer with them through all these activities. If you are or will be a student in Korea definitely ask your department when they will do their MT. Here’s my pics: