Kim Yu-mi crowned Miss Korea 2012

Miss Korea 2012 Kim Yu-mi, center, and the six runners-up pose after being crowned in the final round of the annual beauty pageant held at the Grand Peace Palace of Kyung Hee University in Seoul, Friday. From left are second runner-ups Kim Yoo-jin and Kim Tae-hyun; first runner-up Lee Jung-bin; Kim; first runner-up Kim Sa-ra; and second runner-ups Kim Na-yeon and Kim Young-joo. /
 Korea Times photo by Hong In-ki


Kim Yu-mi was crowned Miss Korea 2012 at the Grand Peace Palace of Kyung Hee University in Seoul, Friday.

The 22-year-old smiled while being crowned by last year’s winner Lee Sung-hye. Dressed in a rich, gold dress, the fresh-eyed beauty’s surprise and excitement were evident.

She will be the representative of the country for the coming year. Kim is currently taking a year off from Konkuk University, where she is majoring in film studies. The new Miss Korea said she enjoys reading books and listening to music. She is also a good piano player.

Lee Jung-bin, 19, from South Jeolla Province and Kim Sa-ra, 23, from Seoul were named first runners-up; the second runners-up were Kim Yoo-jin (23, from Seoul), Kim Tae-hyun (19 , from North Gyeongsang Province), Kim Na-yeon (20, from Daegu) and Kim Young-joo (19, from Incheon). The competition, hosted by renowned emcee Kim Sung-ju and actress Park Jin-hee, saw performances by Korean pop musicians 2AM, LeeSsang and Kim Bum-soo.

The preliminary rounds for this year’s pageant began in April with regional competitions. Contestants were chosen nationwide and also from overseas Korean communities in New York, Los Angeles and other cities.

Since the start of this month, the 54 finalists participated in community service activities, including working with a volunteer group to make lunch for the elderly, and giving a variety of dance performances for them including ballet, traditional dance and flamenco.

Miss Korea 2012 will compete in Miss Universe 2013. The competition is the oldest beauty pageant in the country, having been held annually year for 56 consecutive years. It is sponsored by the Hankook Ilbo, a sister company of The Korea Times

JYJ Host Biggest-Ever K-Pop Meeting for Foreign Fans NEWS National Politics Business Sci-Tech Sports Arts & Entertainment World Opinion Tip of the Day PEOPLE HOT ISSUE INSIDE KOREA City Life Events Travel Korea 101 VIDEO CLIPS PHOTOS LATEST NEWS RSS banner banner Home > Arts & Entertainment smaller bigger E-mail Print List twitter RSS JYJ Host Biggest-Ever K-Pop Meeting for Foreign Fans The Korean Wave has taken a new turn, with K-pop singers inviting their foreign fans to Korea rather than just heading overseas to stage concerts. Spearheading the new trend is the three-member boy band JYJ. The group met 7,000 Japanese fans at Seoul Trade Exhibition and Convention Center in southern Seoul as part of an event dubbed "JYJ Membership Week," which also featured photographic and video-based exhibitions of the band. JYJ/ Courtesy of C-Jes Entertainment JYJ/ Courtesy of C-Jes Entertainment It was the first time that a Korean singer -- solo or group -- has met such a large number of foreign fans in the capital. As the venue was not a concert hall and had no seating facilities, the attendants had to stand during the two-hour show. C-Jes Entertainment, the band's agency, booked over 3,500 hotel rooms in Seoul, Incheon and Suwon, and arranged 250 buses to accommodate the Japanese fans. "[JYJ] organized the event to repay fans' love," Baek Chang-hoo, the agency's president, said. "We'll keep coming up with plans to create fond memories for fans."

The Korean Wave has taken a new turn, with K-pop singers inviting their foreign fans to Korea rather than just heading overseas to stage concerts. Spearheading the new trend is the three-member boy band JYJ.

The group met 7,000 Japanese fans at Seoul Trade Exhibition and Convention Center in southern Seoul as part of an event dubbed "JYJ Membership Week," which also featured photographic and video-based exhibitions of the band.

JYJ/ Courtesy of C-Jes Entertainment 

 

It was the first time that a Korean singer -- solo or group -- has met such a large number of foreign fans in the capital. As the venue was not a concert hall and had no seating facilities, the attendants had to stand during the two-hour show.

C-Jes Entertainment, the band's agency, booked over 3,500 hotel rooms in Seoul, Incheon and Suwon, and arranged 250 buses to accommodate the Japanese fans. "[JYJ] organized the event to repay fans' love," Baek Chang-hoo, the agency's president, said. "We'll keep coming up with plans to create fond memories for fans."

K-POP CONTEST IS IN INDIA NOW (ATTENTION ): ANYONE CAN JOIN AND WIN LOTS OF PRIZES AND GET A CANCE TO VISIT KOREA

2012 K-POP CONTEST

Song & Dance

Winners will be invited to Korea!

Attend the program and collect your free T-shirt!

I.                   To Participate(* Non Koreans Only):

1.      Stage 1: Online

o Guidelines :

-          Reproduce the SONG AND/OR COVER DANCE CHOREOGRAPHY of your favorite Korean Pop artist

-          Post your User Created Content (UCC) of the song/cover dance on http://www.coverdance.org

o Deadline : Tuesday July 31st, 2012

o Selection : 10 teams will be shortlisted to participate in the semi-final

2.      Stage 2: Semi-final in New Delhi

 o Date: Saturday August 25^th, 2012; 5pm

 o Venue: JNU Auditorium-I, New Delhi

o Prize for winners at the Semi-finals:

Gold Prize	o A round-trip ticket to Korea to participate at the Final, ‘Hallyu Dream Festival’ o LG laptop
Silver Prize	o Samsung Galaxy Note
Bronze Prize	o LG LCD TV
Participation Prize	Samsung mobile phone

3.      Stage 3: Final in Korea

(1) Hallyu Dream Festival

o Date : Friday September 21^st, 2012

o Place : Gyeongju, Korea

     (2) K-Pop World Festival

o Date : Saturday October 27^th, 2012(may change)

o Place : Changwon, Korea

II.                Contact:

-          For details, visit http://ind.mofat.go.kr/english/as/ind/mission/notice/index.jsp

and http://www.coverdance.org

-          Joohee Ahn: augustjha@yahoo.com / +91-11-4200-7071

-          Ye-Eun Kim: kye8898@nate.com

Language, Intercultural and Communication

Wordless language vital for intercultural communication


More than 200 linguists and professors in the Asia-Pacific region will gather at the Law School of Sungkyunkwan University (pictured above) in Seoul today for the ninth biennial, three-day communications conference. The participants will present scholarly papers on the implications of culture, nonverbal behavior, values, beliefs and attitudes in communication. Takehide Kawashima, professor of Nihon University in Japan, and Xiaohui Pan, professor of the Shenzhen University in China, are among the participants. / Korea Times file


Many intercultural communication scholars suggest that to survive in the 21st century, we should be armed with linguistic and cultural competence that cuts across cultures.

Linguistic competence includes phonological, morphological and syntactical components, which we call word language, whereas cultural competence comprises nonverbal behaviors, values, beliefs and attitudes, which we call wordless language.

Wordless language is more difficult to cope with than word language, though it is always hard to draw a sharp line between linguistic and cultural elements.

They are so closely intermingled with one another that they are inseparable in most cases. For instance, take the sentence “A rolling stone gathers no moss.” It is so full of cultural overtones and implications that Koreans and Americans interpret it quite differently. Americans view “a rolling stone” as a lively and active individual who is not bogged down by conventions. To Koreans, however, a rolling stone is a loose cannon unable and unwilling to accept the conventions necessary for social harmony. Thus, the sentence could be used in one culture as an encouragement to keep moving on and in another as a warning to settle down.

When discussing verbal and nonverbal behaviors, cultural values, beliefs, that is, thinking and reasoning patterns and attitudes in intercultural communication, we may concentrate on one or another. We must always keep in mind that they are all closely related. Indeed, if we stress only one to the exclusion of others, we are likely to be misled in our interpretation of intercultural communication.

People often say that learning and adapting to another language, difficult though it is, poses less of a problem than being sensitive to the range of nonverbal behaviors that differ. These nonverbal behaviors can be accommodated or even mastered if one is young enough, but conflicts in cultural values may be unavoidable. While one may come to understand or at least appreciate the vital differences in cultural values, many have given up trying to understand how another person “reasons” or “thinks”.

Language is a system which can be studied, described, and taught. We know much more about language and languages than about any of the other areas.

If one is speaking a second or third language and makes a mistake, it may immediately be apparent to a native speaker, and it can be questioned and corrected.

It is far easier psychologically as well as physiologically, to repeat a word and ask its meaning than to repeat a raised eyebrow or frown and ask what such gestures mean. Dictionaries can be helpful, within limits, but we have no dictionaries for nonverbal behaviors, values, culturally different patterns of thinking and reasoning, and attitudes.

I do not mean to suggest that learning another language is a simple matter. Language study is demonstrably more systematic, and far better understood. When a person hears words in a language he has never studied, he does not understand the words. In many cases, a person can completely misunderstand without ever realizing that he has misunderstood.

For example, when a Hawaiian waves her hand vertically, palm outward, it means "goodbye". But Koreans take it as a signal "to come here.’’

Unlike verbal and nonverbal behavior, cultural values cannot be recorded directly on tape or film. Values are abstractions, concepts, or ways of organizing a large amount of otherwise apparently unrelated behavior.

We often talk about the differences between “American English” and “British English,” noting differences in spellings and pronunciation. These are minor, superficial differences. The greater differences, at least as they lead to misunderstandings, are in values which may be expressed in words or other kinds of behavior. If an American and an Englishman meet for tea at the home of the Englishman, the American may reach over and help himself to some sugar or cream. If he does so, the English host might be annoyed, for as a guest the American should wait until he is offered the sugar and cream. The Englishman’s value here might be said to be: “be my guest.” The American’s value might be expressed as: “make yourself at home.” The Englishman might interpret the American’s behavior as rude or arrogant.

On the other hand, if the Englishman were a guest at the American’s home for coffee, and he waited to be invited to take sugar or cream, the American might be annoyed: “Why are you English so stuffy and stand-offish!” This is a good example, I think, because the two cultures are similar, and there is certainly no problem here of language or even gestures.

Varied ways of reasoning exist, so we can expect variations from culture to culture. Germans stress logic, while Koreans, Japanese and Chinese reject the Western system of logic. The Arab world is characterized by an intuitive and affective reasoning, while an axiomatic, deductive sort is practiced in Russia. What is universal is that each culture has a reasoning process, but each shows the process in its own way.

The differences between cultures can be illustrated by examining the reasoning processes of Americans, Europeans and Asians. Following the Western style, Americans are logical and analytical, relying on scientific induction. They seek out the facts and then apply rational principles to them to combine the facts into an orderly and consistent whole. Facts are essential. With the facts at hand, Americans proceed to ideas -- thinking inductively.

Using a deductive, abstract style of thinking, Europeans consider ideas first. They do not need to assume facts, and they tend to generalize from one idea to the next by means of logic. Europeans place greater stress on powers of thought; Americans emphasize empirical observation and measurement. Though both cultures differ in their use of inductive and deductive thinking, both also follow an Aristotelian reasoning pattern, logical and analytical.

Asians, by and large, are non-Aristotelian by nature. Most Asian cultures practice a reasoning process that is not logical and analytical, but more intuitive and meditative, stressing introspection and contemplation. Greater attention is given to the unity between objective facts and subjective feelings and less to analyzing and breaking a subject into smaller units as tends to be done by Westerners. Asians are not as effective in learning the “facts” about something. They are better at maintaining group harmony and not hurting individual feelings.

We are not born with attitudes. They begin to form soon after we are old enough to begin to comprehend the world around us. We learn to respond favorably or unfavorably toward objects, people and ideas.

Attitudes are founded on beliefs, guided by our values and motivated by our needs. They are part of the behavioral predispositions that run our lives. A variety of attitudes exist. For the intercultural communicator, ethnocentrism, stereotypes and prejudices are important. They affect communication across cultures directly and broadly. Let’s take ethnocentrism for instance.

The ethnocentric tradition of human beings is such a powerful one that has flowed on in majestic continuity from the old times to the present day. Take, for example, the historic event of the Holy Wars between the Christians and the Muslims during the Middle Ages. In Western textbook accounts of the wars, they refer to the Christians as crusaders and Muslims as religious fanatics. If Muslims read accounts of the wars, they would call the Christians fanatics. Bloody conflicts between Christians and Muslims are still going on.

The ancient Chinese felt that unless a person spoke Chinese and observed Chinese customs, he or she was a barbarian. During the occupation of Asian countries by the Japanese, many rebellions occurred. Those who fought against the Japanese are still referred to as patriots in their own countries, but by the Japanese they are known as rebellious murderers. A recently coined expression, one man’s patriot is another man’s traitor, seems appropriate to our age.

(The writer is a professor emeritus of Dankook University and chairman of Jinseok Co. The article is an abridgement of his opening speech at the biennial three-day communication conference today at the Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul under the sponsorship of the Pacific and Asian Communication Association.)

Korean Cultural Renaissance

Korean Cultural Renaissance:

 I have taken the entire article from the Korean English magazine called "KOREA FOCUS"

 

Kim Il-soo

Korean Ambassador to Israel

“Nanta” recently hit Israel when it was performed as part of the commemorative events for the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Israel. As hallyu has yet to reach a significant portion of people in this country, I was worried about the audience response while preparing three shows of the non-verbal stage production: two at a 1,200-seat venue in Tel Aviv and one at a 500-seat theater in Jerusalem.

 

 

The result was amazing with all of the three shows sold out. The audience responded enthusiastically, many saying the shows were “unforgettable” and they were “surprised at Korea`s artistic originality.” Watching the famous show for the first time myself, I was deeply impressed by the artistic appeal of our performing arts.

 

It has long been argued that “soft power” is one of the key barometers of a nation`s influence. Rather than earning the recognition of their prestige by evoking fear through military and economic supremacy, nations in our era are urged to attract others by demonstrating cultural charm.

 

They say culture flows like water. A culture that is classy and fun flows down naturally. The concept of “soft power” was first perceived by the United States, which boasts of the strongest “hard power.” It goes without saying that “soft power” is important for every nation but it is particularly far more important for middle-tier nations like South Korea, whose hard power potential is inherently limited.

 

While serving in the United Kingdom, I vividly experienced the potential of “creative industries.” The U.K. earns nearly 10 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) from idea-oriented industries, including musicals, dramas, fashion, entertainment planning and advertising. Economic benefits aside, Britain enjoys enormous privileges through its cultural power represented by creative industries. The housing prices in London are sky-high largely because people all over the world want to live there. Behind such popularity lies an exciting, high-class culture.

 

The reputation of London and New York as the global financial and consulting hubs is due to top-class professionals in these knowledge-based industries living in the cities, and one of the reasons they flock to these cities is because of their wonderful cultural infrastructure. In other words, culture is not only the driving engine of creative industries but also the essential factor that lures human resources of high value-added service industries.

 

Song Seung-hwan, CEO of PMC Production and producer of “Nanta,” who accompanied the performing group, gave an encouraging remark. He said South Korea stages more than 100 homegrown musicals per year, a number roughly equivalent to that of Britain. It means our young artists are endeavoring with an explosive amount of creative energy to break away from the customary practice of paying hefty sums of royalty to stage foreign originals. Thus, they probably will continue to reach higher standards, displaying greater potential of soft power. I hope that Korea`s cultural renaissance will become a major trend of our time to enrich the life of people around the world. 

 

Source: Korea Focus/ July 2012