SIWA hosts meeting with NK defector

Members of the Seoul International Women’s Association (SIWA) pose after the September Network Meeting at Restaurant Parlour in Itaewon. / Korea Times photo by John Redmond

By John Redmond

The Seoul International Women’s Association (SIWA) will host a special October Coffee Morning featuring special guest speaker Kim Kwang-jin, a North Korean defector, at Conrad Seoul, Oct.16.

Acknowledging the 60th anniversary of the armistice between South and North Korea, Kim will share his personal story and answer questions in an interactive Q&A session focusing on his knowledge and personal experience of North Korea.

“As this year marks the 60th anniversary of the armistice between South and North Korea, SIWA is grateful to Mr. Kim Kwang-jin for accepting the invitation to speak at our Coffee Morning. So, bring your curiosity and questions for an interactive session about one of the most mystifying countries in the world,” the group stated in a press release.

Since defecting to South Korea with his family in 2003, Kim has served as visiting scholar in the U.S. with the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), has earned two masters degrees, and is working on a PhD.

In Seoul he currently works as a senior researcher at the Institute of National Security Strategy, is an advisor to the Ministry of Unification, and serves on various boards.

Before his defection from North Korea, he served as the Singapore representative of the Northeast Asia Bank; an agent of the Korea National Insurance Corporation managing accounts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He majored in English literature at Kim Il-sung University and taught English at Pyongyang Computer College.

Kim’s invaluable experience allows him to shed a powerful light into the darkest corners of the North Korean regime’s clandestine international financial operations.

His revelations have saved re-insurance companies tens of millions of dollars and brought an end to a crucial method the corrupt regime used to purloin from foreign sources funds used to sustain the internal oppression of its people while continuing the development of nuclear power capability.

He has published a number of papers and articles on the North Korean economy and the current transition of power in North Korea, and has been guest speaker at many distinguished international events.

SIWA is Seoul’s premier international women’s organization, consisting of women from more than 40 countries, including about 25 percent from Korea. For more than 50 years, SIWA has been a place where women from around the world can meet, find friends, learn about each other’s cultures, and improve the lives of those less fortunate in Korea.

One of the most important things SIWA does is to contribute to Korean society through its biggest fundraiser, the Diplomatic and Cultural Bazaar, and it has contributed more than 2 billion won ($1.7 million) to Korean charities over the years. SIWA also offers an extensive number of tours to cultural, artistic and recreational experiences.

Coffee Mornings are one of the core activities of SIWA, an occasion when all members come to enjoy topical lectures, panel discussions and special events over a cup of coffee or tea and snacks.

It is a chance to reconnect with other members, make new friends and share information. The event is organized by the Hospitality Chair to provide information about Korea, current affairs, culture and issues of interest to all.

The Coffee Morning is from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and costs 20,000 won for members and 25,000 won for non-members.

The meeting point is Conrad Seoul, Level 6 (Studios 8, 9 and 10).

To get there by public transport leave Yeouido Station at exit 3. Follow the underground passage, along the moving walkway, until you reach the IFC Entrance (L2). Walk to the escalators (located in front of the “8ight Seconds” store) and go up to L1. The entrance to Conrad Seoul is located between the Stradivarius and Bershka stores.

Parking is available for free and valid for 24 hours if you would like to enjoy the ICF Mall and surroundings afterwards. Follow the signs for Conrad Hotel and park in the Purple Zone. Remember to provide the last four digits of your car number plate when responding to the RSVP.

RSVP online at http://siwapage.com/activities/events/october-coffee-morning/

For more information on Coffee Morning or to join the next Coffee Morning as a vendor or sponsor, please contact hospitality@siwapage.com

 

 

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DMZ Documentary Festival to Be Held in Mid-October

 

The 5th DMZ International Documentary Film Festival will take place for a week from Oct. 17 in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, marking the 60th anniversary of the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

The festival, largely non-competitive, will feature 119 documentaries from 38 countries.

The opening ceremony will be held in Camp Greaves, a former U.S. military base near the demilitarized zone on Oct. 17, with a screening of "Ten Thousand Spirits" by director Park Chan-kyong. The fantasy documentary looks back on the stormy life of a female shaman.

Tickets will be available online from Oct. 1. For more information, visit the festival's website at http://www.dmzdocs.com.

More Koreans Spurn Rice But Embrace Coffee

 

Rice consumption is on the decline while coffee is getting more popular, statistics show. According to the Nonghyup Economic Research Institute on Monday, the coffee market in Korea more than doubled over the past four years, while annual per capita rice consumption declined by about six kg over the same period.

Coffee imports rose from 107,000 tons in 2008 to 115,000 tons last year, which translates into 293 cups of coffee per adult a year. The coffee market more than doubled from W1.91 trillion in 2008 to W4.13 trillion in 2012 (US$1=W1,082). By contrast, annual rice consumption per person fell around 6 kg to 69.8 kg.

A bowl of rice fetches only 20.6-45.7 percent of the price of a cup of coffee. According to the report, as of 2012, a 100g bowl of rice was sold for W1,000-W1,500 in restaurants, while a cup of "Americano" or ordinary drip coffee cost W3,500-4,000.

But coffee consumption continues to increase. Koreans over 12 ate rice 19.2 times per week in 2008, but that fell to 17.2 times in 2011. By contrast, the weekly frequency of coffee consumption rose from 7.9 times to 8.6 times over the same period.

Actress Park Si-yeon Happy to Focus on Being a Mom

 

Park Si-yeon

Actress Park Si-yeon became a mother on Tuesday, her management agency said. She gave a birth to a healthy baby girl weighing 3 kg at a clinic in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, it added.

Park, who married in late 2011, said she will devote herself to raising her child for now.

As she is being charged with abusing the anesthetic Propofol, the same drug that helped claim the life of Michael Jackson, she has put her career on the backburner for the time being.

Foreign brands lead fast-fashion boom at Korean Arena

Some consumers raise questions about product quality, cheap prices

By Park Ji-won, Nam Hyun-woo, Baek Byung-yeul

After fast-fashion brands made a successful soft landing in Korea’s fashion market years ago, the wardrobes of young or even middle-aged Koreans have been filled with low-cost garments from such brands.

For years, big name fast-fashion chains, such as Uniqlo, Zara, H&M, 8 seconds and SPAO have beaten other brands including Levi’s or Calvin Klein Jeans, the so-called must-have items that Korean youngsters had to have in the early 2000s.

With the loyalty of fans, the top three SPAs in the Korean market ― Uniqlo, Zara and H&M ― are enjoying huge success with their sales growing sharply. SPA stands for specialty store retailer of private label apparel.

According to the Financial Supervisory Service’s Data Analysis, Retrieval and Transfer System, the size of the country’s SPA market remained at some 1 trillion won ($915.3 million) in 2008, but it will likely surpass the 3 trillion won threshold next year.

Sales for the top three stood at some 800 billion won in 2012, growing more than 40 percent from a year earlier.

As those figures show, fast-fashion has marked a huge presence in Korea’s fashion market. Experts say their rise was backed by offering greater variety quickly to customers at a reasonable cost in the fast-spinning wheel of fashion.

Stores of such fast-fashion brands, or SPAS have packed Seoul’s shopping districts such as Myeong-dong or Hongdae.

When asked “Where do you buy your jeans?” eight out of 10 college students interviewed said they usually visit fast-fashion retailers for shopping.



Reasonable prices

“I’m a big fan of fast-fashion brands because they offer various products at reasonable prices. The jeans that I’m wearing now are from Uniqlo and the shirt is from Zara,” said Yoo In-seok.

Park Hyun-min echoed Yoo’s view.

He said, “The biggest strength that such SPAs have is the price of their products. There is nowhere you can buy this number of garments on a limited budget,” showing two T-shirts, two pairs of pants and some underwear he bought from SPAO, a domestic SPA brand here.

Park Soo-jin picked more fashion-related reasons for her preference in fast-fashion brands.

“Getting away from logo-centric clothes is one of the reasons I choose fast-fashion brands. Just a few years ago, wearing clothes with a big logo on them was considered to be fashionable, but now that is out-dated,” said Park.

“Young people these days are looking for basic items or seeking unique designs. Fast-fashion brands are popular because they succeed in meeting such customer expectations,” said Park.



Functional and trendy clothes

Uniqlo, a Japanese SPA brand leading Korea’s fast-fashion market, focuses on offering various basic items in different materials. Its trademark technologies ― “Heattech” for winter and “AIRism” for summer ― enjoy huge popularity for their function in keeping wearers warm or cool.

Zara is usually described as the brand most definitive of fast-fashion. The Spanish fast-fashion giant distributes an average of two new designs a week to some 1,700 branches around the world.

According to a manager at the company, around 80 designers release new clothing constantly and the company restocks branch shelves with new clothes every week. Customers may not be able to buy shirts they eyed a week ago.

As its product cycle spins more quickly than other brands, its products are said to be the most “trendy” and “fancy,” reflecting young people’s fashion choices.

H&M, the global fast-fashion “king” from Sweden, falls in between the two rivals. It sells basic goods and offers trendy items at the same time. It also releases many collaboration pieces from renowned luxury brand designers, offering a glimpse of pricy designer goods to budget-strapped customers. The company entered the Korean market later than its rivals, but said it has 16 stores in the country and is expanding its business operations.

Park said, “Young shoppers like me want to be fashionable, but they don’t want to spend a lot of money. Fast-fashion brands work well for that.”

Amid the sluggish economy, SPA fashion retailers have been showing a strong performance in Korea, as well as in other countries.

The fashion retail conglomerates say they sell cheap and trendy fashion clothes for customers.

There has been a dispute over quality and price as SPA firms insist that while products may be cheap, all products maintain the same standard of quality.

There may be benefits for customers in buying clothes priced so reasonably. However, whether the quality of the product matches the price is another issue.



The real costs to cheaper products

“Considering the quality of the clothes, I think the price is not reasonable at all. I bought a pair of jeans in one SPA store in Korea that stretched out after wearing them few times,” an office employee working near Seoul Station said.

“The products look fine at first glance, but when you take a closer look, you can see the sewing is incomplete or not carefully done,” a university student surnamed Koo said.

Uniqlo recently released its fall-winter product lines in cashmere and silk, which sell from 50,000 won. Zara sells products at relatively expensive prices, especially in men’s clothes, according to a fashion blogger in Naver, who has been comparing the prices of Zara products over the years. “Clothes are overpriced compared to those in other countries. I bought a set of six socks for 990 yen (10,900 won) in Uniqlo in Beppu in Japan. But I bought four socks in Uniqlo for 15,900 won in Korea. SPA firms likely think of Korean customers as easy-money,” an office worker surnamed Park said.

In terms of corporate social responsibility (CSR), Uniqlo has been active in such activities since 2011, but Zara, which posted some 200 billion won in sales in 2012 in Korea, has never engaged in such activities during the four years the firm has been in Korea.

“I barely see SPA companies performing CSR activities in Korea, even though they make a lot of money here. Looking at that, I just assume that they only just want to earn money,” a consumer said.



Structural problems over clothing manufacturing

A garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed on April 24, killing more than 1,000 local people who worked inside the building. The rise in the demand for cheap clothing overseas has led to cuts in production costs. The factory where the workers worked was shabbily built, leading to the accident, and the wages they received were deemed to be the cheapest among Asian countries. This naturally came at the expense of the workers’ health and safety, all in order to win a bid from overseas SPAs amid fiercer competition.

The disaster in Bangladesh is a prominent case highlighted in the media. However, the sufferers remain victims of the SPA manufacturing system.

“Most of our clothes are made in China, India and Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam and Sri Lanka. The factory which provides the cheapest labor wins our bid. Most SPA firms outsource production, not directly manufacturing,” said a manager at one of the Korean SPA firms by telephone.

“With globalization has come consumer apathy. Who cares about people who make clothing? As long as it is cheap we will buy it,” Anna McMullen, a reporter at CNN, said in a recent article.

“Customers would think that the cheap cost would inevitably come at a sacrifice,” a fashion-related office worker said.

Source : The Korea Times

 

Sugar Pop group crawling back to fame

The five members of Crayon Pop hope the new release of their music video “Bar Bar Bar,” Monday, will restore the group's popularity. / Courtesy of Chrome Entertainment

Crayon Pop jumping, stomping again after scandal

By Park Jin-hai

They seemingly had every reason to fail.

Gum-mi, ChoA, Way, Ellin and So-yul, the five members of Crayon Pop were “different.” Unlike other sexy or cute female K-pop groups, they were dorky.

Dressed in tracksuits and bicycle helmets as colorful as crayons, the five girls in the music video bounce up and down to the repetitive and catchy tune of “Bar Bar Bar” on the tilt-a-whirl and merry-go-round at an amusement park. To the retro sound of fast electronic beats, its lyrics urge people to leave their worries behind and jump along.

“We have always tried to challenge the mainstream in some way,” said ChoA, 23, in an interview with The Korea Times. “As a girl group, we needed to gather up what courage we had simply to be different.”

The quintet recalls the moment they heard that their music would be wacky and funny. “Up to the moment we were called on stage, we were not sure how people would react to our quirkiness,” said Way, ChoA’s twin sister. “So our success was unexpected and sudden.”

Their momentary fall was just as sudden. The previous comments the members left on Twitter, using words from rightist-online media, got them in trouble where angry netizens harshly criticized them. An ad was pulled, an event was cancelled and the public response was negative.

But on Aug. 30, the rookie girl group beat the 12-member boy band EXO on the music program “Music Bank” to top the chart. It also earned them a fandom that is comparable to Psy’s “Gangnam Style.”

On Monday, Sony Korea released the revised version of their “Bar Bar Bar” music video, aimed at the global music industry. The new music video was filmed at locations like a subway station, Han river, and children’s park in Seoul. Their core fan base “pop jeossi” made a surprise appearance in the video.

“All of the difficult moments flashed through in my head,” said Gum-mi, recalling when their name was called out on “Music Bank” in a separate e-interview. She, caught in a torrent of emotion, burst into tears, referring to the recent public backlash against the group.

The other members also spoke cautiously about the incident, even though they were a tough independent group that rose out of obscurity and against all odds. The girls all debuted late. Plus, they all had other careers: Gum-mi worked as a skin therapist; Ellin, a shopping mall fitting model; Way, an indie band singer; and So-yul, a member of another girl band. They spent only a year as group members before they debuted as “Crayon Pop.”

Their entertainment company was small in size, premature in experience, and was lacking finance to promote the girl group. But the rest of the story would have it that the band had a sudden miraculous rise, a series of managerial mishaps, and then fall from fame.

But their viral hit song “Bar Bar Bar” is making the rounds all over the nation, with fans and celebrities parodying their signature quirky dance moves – dubbed the “Straight-Five Engine Dance” for its resemblance to an engine’s cylinders - on YouTube.

Since its release on June 23, their video has received about 5 million views. In just six weeks, it sits at the top of the Billboard’s K-Pop Hot 100 and it also succeeded in making a license deal with Sony Music Entertainment, which is home to Beyonce, Justin Timberlake and Avril Lavigne.

“It was right after our album was released,” said Way, when asked about when the most trying moment of their year-long career was. “We initially thought that once our album was out, all doors would open for us,” she added. The group’s album was released in June, when the K-pop stage was already crowded with existing and new groups.

“The chance to stand on stage was few and far between for us. We found ourselves spending more and more time stuck in the studio,” ChoA added. “It was suffocating.”

These girls, however, didn’t back off. They chose to go forward. With the sole purpose of showing who they were and what they had, they took to the streets, giving “street guerilla concerts,” something unprecedented by an idol group.

They performed wherever they could find space. They even performed in subway stations. Members said that sometimes all the girls huddled together and shed tears at the end of the day. But, because of those days, they secured their core fan base called “pop jeossi” or middle-aged male fans who virtually triggered the nation-wide craze for the group.

“In hindsight, although it was tough, we tried to find a silver lining,” said Gum-mi. “Anyhow, it was way better to be outside performing than staying in the studio,” added Way.

In the freezing winter wind, they performed only in their tracksuits, because with their signature outfit on people would recognize them. “When it was really cold, we used to move to a nearby location and perform more, just to warm up our bodies,” said Way.

Asked about their role models, they name singers such as Lee Hyo-ri and Lee Jung-hyun, who debuted in their teens but hold iconic status and perform even now in their mid 30s.

“But, we would like to be the ‘girl-next-door’ kind of group. A group that can recharge people’s energy levels to the fullest with cheery and light music,” said ChoA.

Source: The Korea Times