one of the improv everywhere events - this time in seoul.

come along if you’re around!

when: 9pm, sat, nov 17, 2007

where: @ the slide in hongdae park

how much: free :D

see you there. should be A LOT of FUN

Half of my life - just about - was spent in Australia.
The other half - earlier part - was in Korea.
Half of that was in Seoul.
And the other in Busan.
PIFF (Pusan International Film Festival) is held annualy in Busan.
Pusan = Busan.
Yes, the name change took place a few years ago, and what a pointless move that was.

I finally managed to experience PIFF in real life this year.
Up until then, it had been reports from friends and family working and enjoying the festival, and other gloriously positive press building up my expectations for this supposedly one of the most important film festivals in Asia.

I like film festivals. I like the exhausted ghostly faces walking around but with passion, and I love the diversity of films one can see as compared to the rest of the year when the palette feels rather mono-tone, especiallly so in Korea. PIFF07 was my first film festival where I didn’t see a single film. I did get a memorably good banana on the beach for free (sweet, ripe, and smells fine) and more importantly, I met some great individuals there. But no film.

PIFF is well known for its young enthusiastic fans, who of course came along to the opening despite the horrible weather this year. They sort of ‘hang around’ the festival area/s, making the site look more lively while screaming madly when someone famous drops by. Some of them do watch films of course, and it is indeed quite hard to get tickets unless you’ve booked well in advance. I went to Haeundae, where the festival was held (mainly anyway); it’s an interesting area, yes. It’s got a beach. (<- and yes, that's a full stop)

There are a lot of hotels. It's a holiday destination (but not so much of a glamorous one - people go overseas for a nice beachy holiday). There's nothing much there. I had a hard time trying to figure out where I could take people around that area. I called my friends who live around there, and I did location-based mobile search etc, but there just wasn't much around. Many restaurants were seafood or korean bbq-oriented, so I know for a fact that one guest who happened to be vegetarian opted for staying in their room, hungry, rather than going anywhere - there was no point.

According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, there are 712 annual local festivals around Korea. Including 'not-so-offical ones' the number's somewhere between 900-1200. Korea didn't have such a festive environment - in an officially realised form anyway - until mid 90s when the local self government system was introduced. And let's face it, Korea was having a hard time making a living till then - and it was not until min 90s that media and culture industries were seen as proper 'industries' that could generate serious money.

PIFF's based both in Haeundae and Nampodong. Nampodong used to be the main area, but it seems that the locative shift is happening gradually towards Haeundae.

As the above map shows, Haeundae is a pretty long way out from the centre of Busan. From Seomyeon (another central shopping/business area), for example, it takes about an hour to get to Haeundae. Nampodong, on the other hand, is central itself (it’s a big shopping district with big and small markets/shops inc. fashion, seafood, and more + a lot of restaurants and small hotels/motels. There will also be another Lotte hotel and department store in a few years). It’s always busy with both locals and foreigners, shopping, eating, and walking around.

I understand that Haeundae may have some potential, and perhaps PIFF was seen as a great opportunity to boost the slowing economy of the area. But I wonder, where are the considerations to the visitors of the festival? What are they supposed to do there? What is the festival doing in terms of the city marketing? Wasn’t it one of the main reasons why the festival started in Busan? What are we seeing marketed here? Yes. Busan is a harbour town, and the beach is always a nice feature to show. However, I’m really doubtful that Haeundae has what it takes to host PIFF at this stage. Yes it may have some potential if the infrastructure improves, but why invest more when the same if not better could be done with less? I don’t see the passionate, loud, friendly, and genuine Busan (which is quite similar to Osaka, culturally) in Haeundae - at least I see less of it there than Nampodong. I’m disappointed, and I’m concerned. I love Busan, and I’d love to see it flourish culturally without seeing the demise of its most important festival.

I think I can stop right here re: PIFF.

So, Goong Nyeo.

At the moment it’s on at cinemas across the country in both the digital and analogue format (no difference in price), and it’s also available in the KTX (express train) cinema compartment. With additional 7000 won, you can watch it (high-def) while travelling from Seoul to Busan (which takes a bit less than 3 hours). On your way back, it’s the Resident Evil 3 at the moment, I think.

I watched the analogue version at CGV in Mokdong, Seoul. It’s a debut film by Mi-jung Kim, a female director, and apparently she tried to involve as much input from females rather than males for this film. After all, it is a film about the court ladies in Choseon dynasty - more specifically, it’s about a mystery surrounding the murder of a Goongnyeo. The plot itself - well, obviously it’s the process of solving the mystery - gets a little weak as it progresses, especially with the sudden addition of supernatural powers through Japanese-horror-CG-like effects. However, in general it’s visually impressive - aestethically pleasing and detailed. The portrayal of depressing gender issues under the Confucian philosophy/politics is nicely done, and I found it particularly amusing how all the male characters were portrayed weak and/or ugly in one way or another, including the little baby prince. The audience started laughing out loud when the prince first appeared on the screen. I thought he was cute, but people were laughing at the fact that he was an ugly baby, not a typical pretty little performer like in most films.

I think it’s also very interesting to see the rise of hoonnam (literally warm man - gentle and nice to women, a lot more feminine than the traditional ideal of men) and other dramas such as jogang jicheo club (first wives’ club) in which women take revenge on their weak and selfish cheating husbands, and also wang gwa na (king and me), a story about the King’s eunuchs in Choseon dynasty. Both are currently broadcast on SBS - very popular.

I’ll finish with the trailer for the film:

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yes, camera obscura’s first australian tour started right here in brisbane last night.
master carmen was reviewing the show, and kindly offered me her +1 ticket - you’re my hero - so, luckily, getting in to this sold-out show was a breeze. cross-leggedness appeared to be the theme of the night throughout shiver like timber and institut polaire until the break before the band of “the (well, my and many others’) great expectations,” at which point people all stood up and it became quite unwise to walk around through the dense crowd.

even considering my potentially biased feelings - liked them for a while now and had been waiting for this gig for over two months - it was a blissful performance. thoroughly enjoyable. fun all the way. every band member had unique air around them, which was great, and of course, the lead vocal traceyanne campbell was magnificant: absolutly gorgeous, multi-talented, and sings like no one else. gold. who could resist having a bit of crush on someone like her. i have a crush on her, yes. i find the members very charming and talented, but i can’t get over her placidity. and, yes, you saw it coming, her hair! she’s irresistable.

here are two clips from their “let’s get out of this country” album:

“if looks could kill” with bits of their live performance footage

and

well-known “lloyd, i’m ready to be heartbroken”

2007 tour dates - australia
02.22.2007 - Troubadour Brisbane, Northern Territory
02.23.2007 - Laneway Festival Melbourne, Victoria
02.23.2007 - Northcote Social Club Melbourne, Western Australia
02.24.2007 - Laneway Festival Melbourne
03.02.2007 - Perth International Arts Centre Perth, Western Australia
03.03.2007 - Laneway Festival Brisbane
03.04.2007 - Laneway Festival Sydney
03.05.2007 - Annandale Hotel Sydney, New South Wales

official info here

i’ve heard some very good reviews - by critiques and everyday film appreciators alike - about swing girls. i really hope there are still tickets left. would love to see it.

i’ve been interested in japanese culture for a while now.

when i was growing up, i didn’t hear much good stuff about japan. traces of the war still remain in many facets of life in korea. older generations simply do not approve of anything japanese. this is also one of the main boosters of the korean wave in countries like china and taiwan. “japanese culture? no. korean culture? oh well, ok.” sort of mentality.

my initial contact with japanese culture was through anime. i didn’t know that they were japan-made; i was just watching what was on tv. some of my favourites were marco (母をたずねて三千里), anne of green gables (akage no anne), and the future boy conan (未来少年コナン).

marco opening

then i was reading lots of japanese manga, and moved to music, then to literature, film, food, arts etc. one of the things i always do when i go over to korea is to sit at kyobo book store and read books by japanese writers. there are places to sit, and on special days you even get offered little bits of snacks and things (so that you don’t get hungry while reading books for free…?) so i satisfy two different types of hunger at once there. i’d love to read more of japanese books here, but it’s just really hard to find contemporary japanese literature here other than murakami haruki and maybe yoshimoto banana. they’re two of my favourite japanese writers, yes, but it’d be great if we had some more variety going on here. i absolutely love ekuni kaori, murakami ryu, and yamada amy, too.

one of my friends in japan has told me how she can see that murakami haruki’s works could be very easily translated into english without losing much meaning. she said they are “written that way.”  my japanese is still shockingly limited, so i’m not quite sure exactly what she means, but i can sort of see how impossibly difficult it would be to translate ekuni kaori’s work, for example. she usually writes in very simple, short sentences. mostly her sentences are not complex or compound types - simple, sometimes fragmented, yet beautifully written.

i bought a book in tokyo on my way back to australia earlier this year. i actually had read a review of it on my way to korea from australia, but failed to locate a copy in any of the cities that i went to - from osaka to asahikawa - so i was delighted when i saw it hidden under some very boring looking novel at a little bookshop in the tokyo international airport. it’s called “inside and other short fiction: japanese women by japanese women.” it’s a collection of eight short stories about contemporary japanese women, written by contemporary japanese female writers. it’s an excellent book.

A mysterious hotel.

What it reminded me of was a biological dead end. A genetic retrogression. A freak accient of nature that stranded some organism up the wrong path without a way back. Eveolutionary vector eliminated, orphaned life-form left cowering behind the curtain of history in The Land That Time Forgot. And through no fault of anyone. No one to blame, no one to save it.

The hotel should never have been built where it was. That was the the first mistake, and everything got worse from there. Like a button on a shirt buttoned wrong, every attempt to correct things led to yet another fine - not to say elegant - mess. No detail seemed right. Look at anything in the place and you’d find yourself tilting your  head a few degrees. Not enough to cause you any real harm, nor enough to seem particularly odd. Who knows? You might ge tused to this slant on things (but if you did, you’d never be able to view the world again without holding your head out of true).

That was the Dolphon Hotel. Normalness, it lacked.Confusion piled on confusion until the saturation point was reached, destined in the not-too-distant future to be swallowed in teh vortex of time. Anyone could recognize that at a glance. A pathetic place, woebegone as a three-legged black dog drenched in December rain. Sad hotels existed everywhere, to be sure, but the Dolphin was in a class of its own. The Dolphon Hotel was conceptually sorry. The Dolphin Hotel was tragic.

can’t wait to get further into the book. a fun japanese time ahead.

1st day: doctoral colloquium (qut kg)

we had randy kluver and barbara atkins as our chairs. people who are passionate about what they do are very sexy. yes, sometimes people like that may turn out to be a bit of psycho, but hey, what’s sexy without psychotic?

i had four main issues i really wanted people to help me with:

1. play - lack of direction in literature
2. contacts - for fieldwork in japan, korea, and china
3. mobile contents/applications - for case studies
4. actor network theory - where to from here? how can i cleverly overcome the temporal drawback of this and expand this for my research?

i got some interesting and helpful feedback from both the chairs and other students. it seems that the second phase of my methodology could be improved to make it more efficient and viable. this was my initial plan:

1. literature review
2. questionnaire and focus group (or interview)
3. case studies

after the presentation + feedback, plus a private chat with randy, it became clear to me that i may need to scrap the idea of quetionnaire (the main reason suggested was the difficulties that i will no doubt face, especially in china. randy’s got a lot of experience in research in china, and he warned me in a nice way about the hardship of conducting “structured” research in china) and replace it with interviews only. randy commented that he thought my project was extremely exciting and fascinating, but my methodology may present a lot of hinderances. i’ve thought about it for a while, and decided to go with the interview method. barbara and randy were so helpful, i feel really indebted.

i personally find deleuze’s ideas facsinating - though i only have an extremely limited amount of understanding - so polly mcgee’s presentation interested me. we’ve emailed each other since, so hopefully we can keep in touch. enjoyed listening to other people’s ideas too. apart from the fact that we had no sweets for morning/afternoon tea and very limited consideration for vegetarians in terms of food prepartion, and consequent physical and emotional pain, it was an enjoyable day, at least cognitively.

2nd - 4th day (hilton)

unlike most of us who pay to talk, keynote speakers are paid to talk. obviously there are reasons for that, and i enjoyed the keynotes (john hartley and guo liang). there was one session that i particularly enjoyed - incidentally full of qut people, not just qut people but qut people i like :) - jean burgess, sal humphreys, christina spurgen, and melissa gregg (uq). jean’s idea of new media literacy in relation to usability and hackability was very interesting (smart woman!); jean mentioned that people’s desire to improve their photographic skills is one of the main motives behind their continued flickr participation. this made sense to me as well, as i believe that “social productivity” is main reason behind the continued participation in cyworld in korea. i would like to contemplate further on the similarities and differences between flickr and cyworld from the productivity perspective. sal talked about regulations in multiuser online games, which was fascinating as well. i quickly - despite jean’s official “no more comment/quetions” - mentioned two animations before i left the room for another presentation: serial experiments lain and .hack. serial experiments lain was what brought me into the world of digital communications research. i watched the series (thanks to gt) in my 2nd year of undergrad, and i was blown away. unfortunately someone mentioned some website or something right after my comment, so i had so many people coming up to me during the break asking about the “websites”… haha. oh well.

other sessions i found exciting:

• nancy baym: The Internet in advice columns: Constructing relational consequences
  - i love her energy; it was really fun to listen to her talk
• marta celletti: The Internet as a Time of Regression: a hypothesis
  - big, interesting ideas. lots to think about.
• marika luders: Converging forms of communication?
  - i liked her simple yet effective interaction-participation-social integration approach. met her at the doctoral colloquium. she’s fun. tres cool.

i met a lot of great people at the conference, which was the best thing about the conference for me. it was a very enjoyable experience. it was a long one as well, so accepting the end of it felt pretty weird, as i said in my group email the other day:

the aoir conference has been such a major, though temporary, shift in my daily routine, it felt so surreal to walk out of the Hilton last Friday (had drinks to chill out, but it became even more surreal especially with nick cave’s little message on the toilet wall, rainbow, and the boys in their underpants parading victoriously around new farm after the game).
obviously i didn’t stay for the wrap-up; went to anise in new farm with oksana. had a wonderful time. surreal. definitely. and fantastic.

anyway, another conference weekend - going to ATOM conference. crazy busy. but i don’t mind it at all. especially since 4pm yesterday ;)