K-Pop Academy [Week 11 - Homework]

Seeing as we visited the British Museum this week, our homework was based about the National Treasures of Korea. There are so many beautiful historical sites I would love to visit in Korea but I focused on Korea's intangible heritage of humanity instead.

During my visit to Korea, I saw a spectacular Taekwondo performance. From then onwards I have been in awe with Korean martial arts which is why for this weeks homework I chose to do a promotional video for Taekkyeon (택견), a form of traditional Korean martial arts. 

Here is a video of Taekkyeon:

I tried to the mimic the style of the Infinity Chanllenge's Bibimbap promotional video too:

Although I attempted to imitate various moves from videos of Taekkyeon, I added my own moves which is why I called it 'Tam-kwondo'. Check out my video below:

Mandatory Homework

In addition to the video, this week we also had another piece of homework. We visited the British Museum for this weeks class and were told there were some errors in some of the description in the Korean room.

After class, a group of us K-Pop Academy students visited the Korean room again searching like crazy for the errors. We even attempted to speak Korean to Korean visitors to ask if they had realised any errors and they attempted to help us but had no luck too.

Therefore I decided to us my best friend Google. =)

It turns out that the birthplace of the Buddha was incorrectly noted to be in India, however, the British Museum have now corrected this information.

An iron statue of a Buddha in Korean room in the British Museum
Source: KCCUK

So how could the Korean room in the British Museum improve to promote Korea's cultural heritage more effectively?

1. More about Korean traditional music

Having learnt about how Korean music has evolved, it would have been nice to see artefacts of the early instruments used in Korea. The techniques used to make the instuments in the past and now may differ a lot. Therefore it would have been great if there was more information about traditional Korean music now that Korean music, especially K-Pop, is becoming more popular.

2. More about Korean art

Although there were numerous traditional Korean ceramics in the museum, personally I would have liked to see more traditional paintings and drawings. I am aware that there are some marvellous Korean folk paintings, such as the ones below, so I would have loved to see more in the Korean room.

Painting of Taekwondo

3. More about the Korean language

Having gained a better understanding of the birth of the Korean writing system, Hanguel, through the K-Pop Academy, it would be truly amazing if there were pieces of early documents written in Hanguel.

Overall, although there were many beautiful artefacts in the Korean room, in my opinions the room would better promote Korean culture if it provided more information on traditional Korean music, art and Hanguel.

K-Pop Academy [Week 10 - Homework]

The focus of this weeks class was the Future of K-Pop. I wasn't actually able to attend this week class (because of protests in my town). Boohoo~! It felt strange staying at home staying at home on a Saturday. But the focus of this weeks class was the future of K-Pop.

So for the homework I chose to do a comic strip of what kind of K-Pop star I would choose if I was a CEO. CEO Sidika, it's got a nice ring to it. Haha. =P

The comic strip tells the story of what happens during the auditions and what the judges look for when selecting contestants.

Here's a closer look at the story:

Contestants are practicng hard in the waiting room

The judges are waiting patiently for the next act. (There's me in the pink top). Haha

The door opens and in walks..

..a contestant who is really pretty..

..but her singing is awful. So regardless of the fact that she is attractive,
which is often a must for K-Pop idols, she gets buzzed off.

The next contestant is doesn't look like a typical, doll-like K-Pop idols..

..however, she has the voice of an angel so you goes through. =)

A geeky boy walks in next. Surprisingly he has amazing b-boying skills and
since I am always amazing by b-boying he easily goes through to the next round.

The last contestant is dressed from top to toe in Indian attire. The judges don't know what to
expect but she has some amazing Bollywood moves..

..so she also goes through.

All in all, my comic strip illustrates that although I understand that beauty is seen as a must in K-Pop, there are other more important factors such as true talent~.. =) Plus, I barely see any ethnic minorities in K-Pop which is understandable since it's such a homogeneous country but a little of colour would be nice. Haha~.. =)

Hope you enjoyed my comic.. ^0^

Our trip to Korea September 2010: Day 4 - House Party

It's raining, it's pouring, in Seoul

On our 4th day in Korea we stayed at home and had our own little house party. Originally we were meant to go out but it was raining like mad so we had no choice but to stay indoors. They said it hasn't rained like that for 100 years, it rained so much that the subway was partially flooded with water.

Our favourite banana milkshake

At least we had Korean snacks, good company and awesome music to keep us occupied, so it was good fun! We don't have much to write about this day, we just spent the day with friends chatting away!

K-Pop Academy [Week 9 - Homework]

As this week class was focused on noraebang, I decided to do a video of my singing Korean songs. For those who have witnessed my singing during noraebang, you know how terrible my singing is. But I made this video to illustrate how I bug my family with by constantly singing along to K-Pop songs. Here's my video:

Thanks to my family for getting involved and not bring afraid to make themselves look crazy like me. Haha.

Also since I love noraebang so much, I compared my experiences of noraeabang in England to Korea.

England

Korea

All in all, wherever you go, whoever you go with, noraebang is always a blast~! After going the first time, I realised why it was so popuar in Korea. It lets you release stress and sing at the top of your lungs without being afriad that you can't sing.

If you guys haven't been noraebang yet, I really recommend you to try go!

-Tamanna

K-Pop Academy [Week 8 - Homework]

The focus of this weeks class was traditional Korean music. Since I've heard Arirang (아리랑) a couple of times before, I decided to research about it for this weeks homework.

When I first read the lyrics, I thought it was a simply sad song about a woman losing her love but the more I researched about it, understood the true meaning of the song. This song is used to express the feeling of Korean sorrow and oppression (한) as well as bringing people together and trying to lift the spirits of the nation.

Therefore, I attempted to do a storyboard about Arirang.  It was pretty big so it took a while to stick up but here's the finished product. (It's surprising how much time I spent on this when I'm meant to studying for my last year uni exams. Yikes~!)

Story board about Arirang

Posing with the big storyboard

Additionally, I was fascinated by the Korean fusion songs I heard in class so I attempted to make one myself by combining the traditional Arirang song with Poison Gas (독기) by LeeSsang (리쌍). As the lyrics of Poison Gas also express the feeling of hardship and trying to overcome difficult obstacles in life, I thought it would go well with the meaning of Arirang.

The English translation of the song is:

Arirang, Arirang, Arariyo

Arirang over the hill we go

(from Arirang)

I get up from this life that is like a ditch

I live by achieving what I want

I go up more more more, go up

(from Poison Gas)

I used the storyboard in the video to illustrate the story told in the Arirang song. This is my first ever attempt at mixing a song so I hope you guys like it~! ^^

-Tamanna

Our trip to Korea September 2010: Day 1 - Heading to South Korea

On the 17th of September 2010 we went to South Korea. We stayed for 11 days, I know its not long and we wish we could have stayed longer but it was still an amazing experience.

We travelled to South Korea with Emirates it wasn't a direct flight and we had to change over a Dubai.

Tamanna and Reshma at Heathrow airport

The flight from Heathrow to Dubai was hours.

View from the window

Tamanna on the plane

Food on the plane

When we arrived at Dubai aiport we had to wait for our connecting to flight to South Korea. We didn't have to wait long for the flight so we decided to have something to eat. When we went to buy things to eat we did have abit of a problem some places didn't accept pound sterlings and we didn't have any dirhams.

Reshma in Dubai airport

Afsana and Tamanna at Dubai airport

On our flight from Dubai to Korea, it finally hit us that we were going to Korea because we could hear people around us speaking Korea. This really friendly guy from Ulsan was sitting next to us on the way there. He was curious as to why we were going to Korea and we explained how we had been interested to Korea culture for a long time and how it started with the movies. When we were talking about Korea music, it seems that we knew more that he did. Haha.

After we got off the plane

Once we arrive at Korea, everything felt so surreal. Fortunately the guy we met during the flight was helping us with anything we didn't understand.

Sisters With Seoul at Incheon Airport

Tamanna with our unnie

We were super excited to see unnie again so we had a frantic catch up session before we headed too unnie's house. As she lived in Gangnam (강남), and we were saying with her for the duration of out trip, we then had to the the underground to get to her place.

I must say. the subways in Korea looked clean and shiny that we just had to take a picture, typical tourists.

Korean subway

Once we finally reached Gangnam station station, it started to hit me that we were actually in Korea. Gangnam lives up to the expectation i had for it. Young and constantly buzzing, we knew we would enjoy our stay here. But although we were exhausted from our long flight, it wasn't time to hit the sack just yet.

The streets of Gangnam on the day we arrived

 We dropped our things off at unnie's apartment and headed straight out again. First we went to a sticker photoshop. It was the same one JoKwon and GaIn went to in WGM. It was amazing because shop was filled of lots of sticket booths and I've never seen anything like it in London except the odd sticker photo shop in China Town in London.

Unnie, Tamanna and Reshma in the sticker photo shop

Our pictures

After taking all those picture, we started to feel hungry and low and behold we saw a street vender. We had seen them in dramas so we definitely had to try it. We tried ddeokbokki (떡볶이), fish cake and other things that I can't quite remember the names of. The vender was worried that we wouldn't be able to handle the spiciness but we ensured her that we were acquired to eating curry. However, she was right, the food was spicier than I expected. She was also curious as to where we're from and my unnie explained that we are from England but ethnically Bangladeshi.

Friendly street vender

Sisters With Seoul along with the street vendor

 Then it was time for some desert to we popped in to Baskin Robbins to see what they had to offer.

Tamanna, unnie and Afsana in Baskin Robbins

Sisters with Seoul in Baskin Robbins

After gobbling down our ice-cream it was time to head home and get some much needed rest and conserve some energy for the upcoming days.

Useful websites:

Emirates
http://www.emirates.com/uk/english/

Incheon Airport
http://www.airport.kr/eng/

Korean Subway
http://www.visitkorea.or.kr/ena/TR/TR_EN_5_1_4.jsp