The Korean Wave 2

Unlike China’s case, a Korea drama called ‘Winter Sonata’ burst the flame of the Korean Wave in Japan. This period is when a Chinese reporter called this syndrome of growing popularity of Korean culture as ‘the Korean Wave.’ There were a lot of critics about this syndrome that the Korean Wave will be just a temporary happening and it will disappear any time soon. Nonetheless, by constantly introducing many other good Korean dramas, movies, and Korean singers, the Korean wave is lasting over 10 years now and it’s even gotten bigger and bigger.

What the impact of Korean Wave surprised me the most is that it is not only happening in the Asia. Throughout ‘the world is flat’ paradigm, many people all around the world can see and hear whatever they want via the Internet. People, who happened to see the Korean culture through the YouTube, are immediately becoming huge fans of Korean culture. To introduce the happening in London recently, many fans that couldn’t get concert tickets of a certain Korean idol band, gathered together at the square and started to demand for another concert.

The impact of Korean Wave to the world is huge culturally, socially, and economically. I would like to introduce about this more in my MCOM 320 research paper. I am so glad that I could find a wonderful topic that I like to write about.

The Korean Wave 1

I have decided to write about the Korean Wave for my research paper in MCOM 320 class. I have been wanted to write about this topic because this field is what I am interested about and I really wanted to introduce to people that how great and fast the Korean Wave is growing.

The Korean Wave refers to spread of Korean culture around the world. Korean cultures such as drama, movie, and music are getting huge popularity all around world especially in east and south Asia such as Japan, China, Taiwan, Philippine, Malaysia, Thailand and so on. Surprisingly enough, even in Europe, North and South America where Asian culture can hardly be popular because of cultural difference, the Korean Wave is already spread and making lots of fans in there .

Once in a while, some of talented Korean pop stars or actors were introduced to Japan that has much bigger entertainment market than Korea has; however, it wasn’t enough to cause a syndrome or make people to believe that Korean culture is something special. Many people believe that the Korean Wave started in late 1990s in China with huge success of the Korean boy band called H.O.T. It was not all about their music but also about their clothing, hair styles, choreography, and their ability to sing well while they are dancing. People in China were shocked about their existence because before then, there were no boy bands like H.O.T who had such a talented music skills and good looking in Asia.

My best soccer player, Ji-sung Park 2

This season is Park’s sixth season in Manchester United. Even though he had several injuries, he continues to prove that he is really helpful and must-have player in the team. According to his head coach, Alex Furgerson says, “Park doesn’t score a lot, but we need him in the field. Because of his ability to create a space for other players like Rooney or Nani, it is always good to have him in the squad. That is one of the reasons why he is always starter in the big games. He is really brilliant soccer player. He understands team tactics well and that ability makes team more effective.”

During the season, Park was out for almost three months due to the injury that he got from Asian Cup; however, he makes all the haters’ mouths quite by scoring 7 goals and 5 assists. His value went high due to the fact that he scored and assisted on the very important games such as UEFA Champions league semi-final and Premiere Championship decision game against Chelsea FC.

Park and his team are looking for “double” this year. There are high possibility that Manchester United will have both Premiere Championship and UEFA Championship of this season. Park is expected to show up on both remained competition. Park’s contract with Manchester United is till June 2012. Many commentators and soccer reporters aspect that if Park continues to do well on those matches, it is no doubt that Park will get a much better contract offer from his team

My best soccer player, Ji-sung Park

Today, I would like to introduce my best soccer player. His name is Ji-sung Park. He is 30 years old right now, and he plays for, one of the greatest team in the world, Manchester United. If you are soccer fan, you can find it very surprising and exciting because it is super hard to get into the soccer team like Manchester United especially when the player is Asian. Ji-sung Park is the first player in Korea who got scouted from the England team. He was recognized by Alex Furgerson (head coach of Man.Utd) during the semi-final match of UEFA Champions league. At that time, he was playing for Netherland team called PSV Eindhoven against Italia’s best team, AC Milan. Alex Furgerson was impressed by this energetic Asian player, so he planned to have Ji-sung Park in his team. In 2005, finally Ji-sung Park became the Manchester United team member, notwithstanding all the worries and talking behind him, Park proved that he was not scouted just for a marketing usage.

Blog#2 NBA Playoffs 2

Today, I’ve watched the first game of NBA Eastern conference semi- final, Boston Celtics vs. Miami Heat game. I’ve only watched the second half of the game, but it seemed like Miami Heat was dominating the game the whole time. Miami was leading the score by more than ten points ever since I started to watch the game. There was no doubt that Miami is going to take the first victory of the series. I mean that it was at Miami Heat’s home and unlike regular season games against Celtics, Dwayne Wade got so good condition on this game. To explain how he was doing in regular season against Celtics, Dwayne averaged only 12.8 points per game and was struggled against Celtics’ defense. But he was different at this game. As if he was deceiving the whole time during regular season, he scored 38 points out of 99 points that his team made.

When you look at the score board and the result, you would have assumed that Miami won easily because of Dwayne Wade. But from the way I see it, there was one more cause of Celtics’ loosing.  During the 4^th quarter, which is the most crucial time in basketball game, Paul Pierce got two technical fouls in a row and got ejected from the game. At that time, Boston was still losing by 13 points but because of Paul Pierce, Celtics was closing the gap. Paul Pierce was constantly making points while his teammates were struggling. I personally think that the first technical foul is acceptable but the second technical foul was controversial. I mean, in that very important moment especially during the first game of semi-final, should the referee have to give Paul Pierce the second technical foul just because he screened on Dwayne a little bit harsh? What I am trying to say is that the referee could have given him a personal foul and verbal warning and let the game be more interesting instead of watching the rest of the game boring. Right after Paul Pierce got ejected from the game, I lost my interest to watch the rest of the game. Because if you know how important is that having a Paul Pierce in a team during clutch time, losing him in the fourth quarter means Celtics have to start thinking about the next game.

I don’t know since when I became Celtics fan, but I hope to see these old NBA players like Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen could have one more chance to get a NBA Champion title.

Blog#1 NBA Playoffs

Recently, my mind is occupied by NBA Basketball Playoffs 2011. After long journey of 82 games of regular season, eight advanced teams of each conference started their tournaments. As of April 30th, all the first-round games are done, and today, the first game of conference semi-final was held. I was looking forward to watch all the games in playoffs but especially I was excited about Miami Heat vs. Boston Celtics game. Both teams have so many great players in their teams. Boston Celtics was well-reformed before Miami Heat did when they made "the big three" of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. On the other hand, in the beginning of this season, people were shocked by the news that Lebron James and Chris Bosh got contracted with Dwayne Wade's Miami Heat. The new “big three” has been formed. People were talking about these teams that what would be happened if these two teams are on the playoffs. The imagination became reality. They finally met at the Eastern Conference semi-final. Since equally strong points that eastern conference teams have, people are having a hard time to guess that which team is going to take the one seat of NBA finals 2011. But it was easy to guess that it will be fought over by either Derrick Rose’s Chicago bulls or the winner of Boston Celtics vs. Miami Heat. I personally believe that Boston Celtics still has chance to challenge one more time for the NBA title. Since, the big three are stable and have no injuries and Rojon Rondo, the point guard of Celtics, got improved a lot during the last NBA finals against LA Lakers and throughout the whole 2010-2011season. And yet, we cannot ignore that this team has so much experience in important games like playoffs that new teams can’t buy from the money. People are trash-talking them because they got so old, and not enough to have physical strength to make it to the final. However, Boston Celtics proved throughout this season and the first-round against New York Knicks that they are still powerful and more skillful than ever was.