KoreanClass101.com Blog

AC voltage differences.

Physics101. Alternating current (AC) is what is in the wall while direct current (DC) is like what is in your car’s cigarette lighter socket. Today, let’s go over some important things to consider about AC power when traveling to South Korea. We must consider two things 1) Voltage and 2) Plug shape.

You’ll find that plugs that come with two flat pins usually are built for 110-120V and plugs with two round pins  are built for 220-240V. Let’s address the most pressing difference first: current (measured in volts). Korea most generally runs a current of 220-240 volts so that must be taken care of first. But before you go out and buy a new travel razor or cell phone charger, check the backside of your device.

If you take a look at the power brick of most electronics, many mid-to-high end electronics already have the voltage capabilities to function perfectly fine in Korea, as well as other countries. For example, my laptop power brick lists the device at capable to run from 100-240V. Score! But alas, my beard trimmer is rated at 120V only - so it must stay stateside

Once you have identified what will not explode once plugged in, now you must find something to change the plug/prong shape. Below is a cheapie but a goodie that attaches to the end of your appliance. The one pictured below is for U.S.A -> R.O.K. Also, don’t panic - my adapter cost me about 50 cents (500 원) in Korea.

Another common solution specifically for laptops is purchasing a new cord that connects from the power brick to the wall. Consider that the three-prong female-end laptop cord is somewhat universal in design. Where the difference lies is the regional plug shape. Meaning, if you went to a Korean electronics store, you can pick up a professional quality laptop cord to go from your power brick to the wall. I think they run less than 만 원 (around 10 bucks).

Below is a list of common plug types. If you see a red X, you need a plug adapter.

I must reiterate that changing the plug shape is not enough - if you plug something in that is rated for 110-120V into a Korean wall socket with a plug adapter - you will see sparks, smoke, and/or Jesus. Play it safe and check the voltage. Essentially, if you can’t get a hold of an adapter and/or your product isn’t rated for 220-240V (like my trimmer) then that’s where transformers come into play. Hook up with a friend who has one of these little dandies and you are in luck.

Transformers (트랜스퍼머) step down the current to a native-like level for several hours. It isn’t recommend to use such transformers for extended periods such as days, weeks at a time because the electricity being stepped down isn’t always “clean”. Remember those other numbers on the laptop power brick? Sometimes the “stepped down” current can also spike those other numbers after prolonged use. Worried about charging your DS? Don’t be. Transformers are safe, just remember that they are not a good idea for devices like TVs, laptops, or other long-term use appliances.

Some big name hotels and boarding houses geared for foreigners (like university dorm rooms) will likely have a few transformers to check out.

I wonder if anyone has any “shocking” stories to tell (sorry - I couldn’t help that one)

Thoughts?

Hi. 현우 here : )  Haha. You do see these pictures?  Yes, that’s me in my military suit. Haha.

So why am I wearing my military suit (=군복) again? Well I had to attend the annual reserved army training (예비군 훈련) this past Thursday, and I took a couple of photos before taking the uniform off.

I’m sure many of you already have some knowledge about the Korean military system, but to briefly mention what it works like, every *healthy* man in this country has to serve the army for roughly 2 years (now it’s getting shorter and shorter), and after the service is over, they have to attend the annual trainings for the next 5~6 years. It’s *very* difficult to find somone who doesn’t have any sweet memory at all from his military service, and even the tedious and long military service can have its enjoyable moments at times but it doesn’t seem to be the case for this 예비군 훈련(reserved army training), HAHA - everybody hates it, and that includes me as well. I guess this is because you’re working, or studying at school, or doing whatever that is NOT related to the army in any way, and you’re called once a year to wear that unfashionable miltary suit and those uncomfortable/heavy military boots and go to the training center(훈련장) on a regular working day

A day at the 예비군 training camp isn’t exactly filled with meaningful tasks, in other words it’s extremely boring but tiring at the same time, but whenever I have these 예비군 trainings, it brings back my memories of the time when I was actually in the army (which was from 2001 to 2003), so I get to call up or send text messages to some of my friends from the military service - which is also how I know that a friend of mine just took his 예비군 training when I hear from him all of a sudden.

안녕하세요!

Ah~ I feel like my recent wait for the things that were going to be released ended in a bit of an anticlimax.

Boyband 東方神起 made their comeback with their 주문 -MIROTIC- MV, which you can watch here. I like the MV itself, but the song … well, I don’t hate it, but it’s really not what I was expecting from them. It does have a slightly more mature and sexy edge to it but it could have been so much more impressive.

R&B artist M also made a comeback with the release of his album, M RIZING, yesterday and the MV for 남자를 믿지마, featuring Big Tone. You can see the MV here! M RIZING was a bit of a disappointment for me. M composed a lot of the songs for his previous album, which I was really excited about, but sadly for this album he only composed two of them. He said in an interview that this album was made to “appeal to the masses” - it really does sound like that, and I really wish it didn’t! It isn’t a bad album, it just wasn’t the huge amounts of awesome that I’d been hoping so much for these past months! I’m also not really digging the Brave Brothers right now, who have been composing quite a few popular songs - problem is that all these songs they’ve written all kind of sound the same. Each new song they write sounds almost like a remix or a compliation of their older ones! The songs are definitely catchy, and a few of them I really love, but I think if I hear another Brave Brothers‘ song in the next couple of months, I might just pray for temporary deafness.

I’m not a fan of them, but girlgroup Wonder Girls released their latest song Nobody, which you can watch here. Not as catchy as Tell Me or So Hot!, but it was kinda cute. JYP makes an appearance in this too.

Rockstar 서태지 released the MV T’IKT’AK! I really like some of 서태지’s stuff, so I was really excited over his comeback in July with his 8th ATOMOS PART MOAI single. T’IKT’AK is a really cool song, and so is the MV, which you can see here.

A couple of days ago female R&B artist 손담비 released her latest mini album, and the MV for the title song, 미쳤어, which you can watch here. I really love this song, it’s catchy and 손담비 is super sexy. The rest of the mini album was a bit of a disappointment for me though, I wasn’t too into the rest of the songs.

Now I’m just hoping that the next thing I’m holding my breath for, which is hiphop group Epik High’s mini album LOVESCREAM will meet my expectations! It should be out in a couple of days, I’m excited! Epik High are one of my favourite artists.

And for anyone who’s tired of the standard pop/R&B/hiphop, then how about this: about a week ago, KoME posted an interview we had with the dub band I&I DJANGDAN, and since I’d never heard of them before I decided to check them out. Reggae is totally not my thing at all XD;; never has been, probably never will be! But if you do like reggae, or just want to try out something different, you might want to give I&I DJANGDAN a go. You can find some of their videos here, I think these are live performances of the songs from their first EP, Culture Tree.

Full Immersion.

We’re talking 99% Korean input here and that’s 100% scary.

It’s no joke - Americans are among the few countries that typically prefer an assisted-approach to language learning. Meaning we generally like to use L1 (our first language - English) to help explicitly learn L2 (the target language - in KC101’s case - Korean). Most people who support this teaching model claim that the stress levels of the students are decidedly lower and that learning can take place in a comfortable L1-rich environment. Koreans are not the only ones who prefer full immersion (the exclusive use of L2 in the classroom) but since we are all students of Korean, let’s focus on that for the moment being. However, I eagerly wait to hear from fellow KC101 students about other countries and their approach to language learning!

Koreans adopt the immersion teaching model out of the thinking that it just works - when you are surrounded by a language, you have an opportunity to learn it. When you have a rich amount of input (i.e. listening) mixed with opportunities to have meaningful output (i.e. speaking) hey! You got yourself a language! Score!

But what about the ones who don’t get past the learning curve? What about culture shock? What about adaptability? What about learning preferences? What about learning differences? What about exceptional learners? What about everything?

No dice. With full immersion, you get it or you don’t. You are either motivated to learn or you aren’t. You either want to speak Korean or you don’t. You either make meaning from the input or you don’t. It’s like Yoda said “Do or do not; there is no try”. Hey, we’ve all heard of this method - it’s the sink or swim model!(Note: the next paragraph is best read with three servings of sarcasm and one gallon of Hatorade to wash it down).

Yea! Sink or swim! What an awesome way to feel unique and special, isn’t it? Man, I love hearing about my friends who “couldn’t hack it”! Or how about the ones who do “make it” but never studied? Oh, I love hearing about those too. Man it sure is cheap too - full immersion doesn’t require an interpreter - cause I understand everything! Sure am glad I spent a month’s salary on that plane ticket and left all my friends and family and life as I know it to live in a strange new environment where up is down and I am finally a minority. Sweet! Oh this is awesome! Gosh, I love waking up all alone in the morning and staring at myself in mirror wondering if today will be the today that I don’t feel like an idiot. Carpe Diem FTW! (Wow - that there’s enough sarcasm to last me a week)

Of course there are obvious pluses to learning a language in an immersion setting. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always work for everyone. Some are either unable or unwilling to leave their home life to live abroad. Some cannot get over the feeling of helplessness. In the states, you are your own person - independent and free. But in Korea, you are an imbecile - a foreigner who gets by either by the color of your skin or the sound of your accent. Even still, you are dependent on public transportation and privacy is a privilege that most don’t get. All that “me” time? Gone.

And of course, even though immersion does indeed provide a chance to “speed up” the learning process, we oftentimes are let down by our expectations set by other learners and (of course) movies. Anyone remember Dances with Wolves? Didn’t it take him like a week to be fluent in Sioux? What a jerk.

Perhaps it is fair to point out the cultural expectations of students and how that plays a role in this debate. Typically, American students are expected to “do their best” (which is of course subjective) and become socially competent. Shyness is considered somewhat undesirable while self-confidence is nurtured. We like our students to be well-rounded individuals who can balance responsibilities at home, part-time work, and satisfactory academic achievement. We also instill at a young age that individuality and uniqueness are celebrated and worthwhile. We also like to focus on the process over the product.

Korean students have different expectations. Responsibilities at home take a much smaller role (sometimes non-existent) while their academic workload practically doubles. It is quite common to go to school in the morning, study in the afternoon, go to a 학원 in the evening, and study some more at night. Performance is more important than the process in which you studied or applied yourself. Shyness is oftentimes equated to humbleness while self-confidence can be interpreted as arrogance. Fitting in is a subtle yet powerful undertone that can motivate many outside thinkers to think “inside the box” early on in their academic career.

Having pointed out some of the macro-level differences, immersion-type classrooms seem like not that big of deal now. Seems that life as a Korean student is pretty stressful with quite a lot of responsibilities. Throw in that homogeneity is the norm in Korea and you have a recipe for comparing apples to oranges: immersion in the West is taken in a different context than the East. Here’s a little illustration to how I see two common occurrences in schools.

It’s not that all American students are outgoing, it’s just that doing outgoing things such as initiating conversation, being brash when asking for a date, putting yourself out there - all things are more common in the states and aren’t nearly as stressful as an environment where you can’t understand what’s being said. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but I typically see more tears coming from my American friends in an immersion setting than say, a Korean classmate.

And yet, there’s hordes of foreigners coming to Korea to teach at countless numbers of jobs that require only a college diploma in any field and citizenship from an English speaking country. These thrill seekers and educators alike come to teach in various environments with the full English immersion model being the most common in the schools and academies.

I’d like to tell you a question a love to ask my classmates when learning Korean “Hey, How much did you just get?” (meaning, how much of what he/she said did you understand?) Then I measure it in percentages. When I attended a newcomer’s orientation at 이화여대, I couldn’t help but score myself just at the 30% mark. That’s 30% of the conversation I understood. Here and there I picked up a word or two - maybe a verb ending or a suffix or whatnot. It’s fun to see what your friends got out of it, too. “Oh so what was she saying about this?” or “Did you catch what she said about tomorrow?” It’s funny to see how one person caught one part of the conversation while another caught the part you missed.

To wrap things up, either way, immersion definitely is one of many ways to successfully learn a language. It certainly isn’t the only or “best” method as there simply is no convincing research evidence that points to one method as the best (although plenty of edutainers will swear by their method). However, it is enough to say that certain methods work with a certain amount of success. Immersion does work in Korea; however, it’s not the only way to learn English. Hey, look at the approach that KC101 takes - it works too - given the right attitude, work ethic, and setting, KC101 can teach you some serious Korean. Having said that, if you get a chance to learn Korean in an immersion environment, I say take it - just bring a box of tissues for the tears - you’ll have plenty to shed over the stress

Thoughts?

안녕하세요. 현우예요.

There’s an interesting promotion event going on at http://korea.net - you can watch videos and participate in the quizes and puzzles, and if you win, you get some prizes ^^ Click [ HERE ] to go to the webs  page!

Hi. 현우 here. : )

I went to 광주 , the city I was born in, to celebrate 추석  with my parents. 추석 is always good, even though you can expect some seriously heavy traffic in the main highways because a lot of people move from city to city all at once. Nevertheless, it’s always worth the effort. For 추석 we did the usual things, like having good food, visiting a lot of relatives and saying hi here and there, bowing, maybe getting some allowance (which doesn’t happen to me any more, unfortunately) and having a small ceremony to thanks the ancestors and everybody else, and visiting some tombs of our close ancestors and paying respect.

But this year,  we did something else too - my family went for a drive!! This is very rare for my family because we only drive to the places we have to go to but never go for a drive all together, but maybe because we had a very good time in Jejudo about 3 weeks ago, driving around the island, we decided to do it once again near Gwangju.

So we went to a small town near 광주, and visited a small temple area where a lot of people were already there to enjoy the view there.

(click to see the bigger image)

And there I saw these 장독s : )  so I wanted to share the photo with you all. They are traditional containers for all type of “장” (간장 - soy sauce / 고추장 - pepper sauce / 된장 - soybean paste) and of course, Kimchi.

(click to see the bigger image)

My parents have two jars like these in their house in the terrace - for 김치 and 된장, but I don’t have one in the house I’m living in in Seoul, simple because I don’t make Kimchi and don’t have to ferment 김치 for long in these jars - I just use the refrigerator ^^

Traditionally, these 장독s used to be buried underground during the winter so that they don’t freeze, and the temperature is just about right underground, so the Kimchi ferments at the perfect speed - and the Kimchi refrigerators are supposed to do the same.

They are still not so difficult to see even in Seoul, but I think fewer and fewer houses have these 장독, not to mention 장독대, a place like this designated only for 장독s. : )

I don’t know if it’s just my strange perception of things, but I think the Korean music scene has been rather quiet these past couple of weeks. I think it’s a case of timing - most groups that have had something come out recently are nearing the mid-way or even end of their single’s promotion run, for some artists it’s about time for them to switch to their album’s second promotional track, for other’s it’s time for them to slowly fade back into the background while they prepare something new.

But I also feel like it’s a bit of a case of the calm before the storm, though that is just my own personal view of what’s going on right now - I am, after all, currently holding my breath for the release of Epik High’s new mini album Love Scream and M’s fourth album, both at the end of the month, and 東方神起’s comeback and fourth album MIROTIC in about a week’s time (their first Korean album in about 2 years, since they’ve been spending most of their time in Japan, pimping their career over there). Exciting stuff for this fangirl! 신화’s Eric also promised to release something before he enlists in the army early next month - but the guy’s been promising some solo work for years now, so I’m not holding my breath. I hope he seriously does it this time though, even if it’s just a digital single, or a little mini album. And 비 promised to make a comeback, too, in early October, with his 5th album.

Anyway, today I thought I’d write a little bit about one of my favourite rock (alternative pop-rock, maybe?) groups: 넬, or Nell.

넬 are made up of 김종완 on vocals, 정재원 on drums, 이재경 on guitar and 이정훈 on bass.

I can’t remember when I first heard them … I got into them a couple of years ago, so I guess it was a little while before that when I first heard them. I wasn’t all that impressed. A friend had me listen to Reflection of Nell, their album from 2001. For me, it was too slow and too boring.

Thinking that that’s all 넬 were, a slow boring band, I didn’t pay any more attention to them. Then when I started to get into Epik High, I heard the song Let It Rain and went “Hey, I recognise this guy’s voice …”. I realised that the track featured 넬, and then realised that another friend of mine was getting into 넬 as well. Since her and I have quite similiar tastes in music, I decided maybe I should give them another try.

I heard Healing Process, their 5th album, and promptly fell in love. Definitely a whole step up from Reflections of Nell, and it was much more my kind of music!

Although I find 김종완’s voice rather whiney at times if I’m not in a 넬 kind of mood, his vocals do really suit 넬’s sound. The songs are mostly pretty laid back, and for me it’s great music to chill out to, or if you just need something in the background while you study or fall asleep. I find them really relaxing, but they aren’t the kind of music I’d want to hear all the time. I’ve got to be in the right mood for them but when I am, they are so good to listen to.

After realising that 넬 were pretty cool after all, I went back and listened to some of their older stuff. Their third album, Let It Rain was also pretty good, but I still found Reflections of Nell to be painfully boring. I honestly can’t remember their second album, SPEECHLESS, at all … so I think it’s safe to say I was neutral towards it.

Last year they released Let’s take a walk, which was a selection of older songs remixed and re-recorded (I think? Someone feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on that!). I wasn’t completely over the moon about the album, but it had a couple of songs I totally fell in love with (it’s okay and Down), and then earlier this year they released another album, Separation Anxiety. It wasn’t as awesome as Healing Process but it still had some really great songs on it, and I really love the track Tokyo, and Afterglow is such a typically 넬 song.

Here’s some MVs if you want to give 넬 a listen

Stay (his hair in this amuses me so much!)
고양이
Good Night
치유
마음을 잃다
it’s okay (the lyrics are so simple, but this song really, really touches me)
기억을 걷는 시간
멀어지다 (this is their latest MV)

And if you like 넬, you might also like 못 or MOT. They’ve got a similiar kind of sound! (Check out 못’s 클로즈)

Kinship terms.

It’s kind of hard to translate the concept literally but these titles are used quite frequently in Korean. Actually, here’s a great lesson on just that.
English can be quite direct at times. Whether that is a good or bad thing, indirectness is more favored in Korean. In English, we like to use names to be polite whereas Koreans prefer the use of titles like 선생님. Certainly there are times when Korean can express some of the most direct concepts possible, but on the whole, Korean functions in an indirect manner most of the time.

One such way to be indirect is the widespread use of kinship terms. Here’s a brief breakdown of a few select terms based on gender:

These four terms are used widely and are quite important. In my case, they were particularly hard to adopt. Not from a pronunciation standpoint but from their implications. For example, I actually have two older brothers. Like for-real brothers. So, when I called someone 형, it felt a little unnatural at first. Like, dude, you’re not my brother. I have two of them and you don’t look like them. All you did was help me find some 만두 at the grocery - so why exactly am I calling you “brother”?

Well, that’s the thing - the titles do have a place in the household in the literal sense. So if a younger sister is talking to her older brother, she will call him 오빠. No qualms with that. Actually, she will likely call her older male cousin 오빠 also. Again, no problem there. But what exactly does she call her boyfriend that is older than her? Oh man - you guessed it. 오빠. Here’s where the lines get fuzzy. No, she isn’t thinking of him like that but she is calling him the English equivalent of “older brother”. So who is the sick one? The 외국인 who over-analyzes the meaning or the Korean girl who has some issues that would make even Freud wince? Sorry guys, this time the 90 pound Korean girl wins…but I’ll be back.

She calls him this title out of respect. When she does, not only does his heart melt (anyone willing to fess up on this?) but he takes on the role of a protective older brother - a role where he is expected to take care of her, be kind to her, and (typically) buy her things. Sounds like a sweet deal, but what if they aren’t boyfriend/girlfriend? What if they are just friends? Same name applies. There are some boyfriend/girlfriend specific titles such as 차기야 (think honey) but kinship and lovey-dovey terms aren’t exclusive like they are in English.

So let’s flip the roles. I’ll take a chapter from my own book and paste it here.

Many of my Korean friends are women that are older than me. So, I call each of them 누나. I have been told that this title (much like 오빠, 형, and 언니) places the older person in the relationship in a particular role. Sometimes this role is desired - I have one friend that likes to be nice to me - she buys me sweets, food, drinks - pretty much whenever I show interest. I get a free meal and she gets the gratification of helping me out - she feels useful and kind. It’s a way for her to show appropriate affection. I know it’s a hard line to translate but this type of friendship is very common among Koreans. Frankly, if she were American, there would be only one way to interpret her actions. Among Koreans, it’s not the same.

But what if the older person doesn’t want to spoil the 동생 rotten? What if he or she has enough already and their plate and doesn’t have time to be pampering someone? That’s when age plays a decisively important role. In this scenario, one would seek out people of the same age - most commonly former classmates (all the way back as elementary and middle school!) as equal-level friends. In this relationship, the two friends can “go Dutch” and split the costs and responsibilities down the middle.

So pretend you are introducing yourself to someone new. When you ask their age, everyone is taking mental notes. Almost like mental friend-shopping. When the answer is desirable (pretend I want an older brother-type to show me around a new city) I immediately strike up conversations with him in hopes that he will help me out. But if he’s younger than me, maybe I’ll think (well he seems alright but I’ve got plenty of 동생 already) and be done with it.

So what if I “take on” a new 남동생? I know he will call me 형 but what will I call him? By his given name with a nice little /야/ at the end for flair . If his name is 성주 he would be called 성주야 but if his name has a final consonant (바침) then simply add an /아/ such as 유빈아.

I can say with certainty that only a small fraction of this type of profiling exists in America. By and large, it is uniquely Korean. It is an echo originating from Confucianism that demands strong importance on social hierarchy. This clashes with the American sense of equality and fairness. In the states, I can talk to anyone I want and make friends with whomever I want with only a few taboo rules in place. In Korean, the lines of terms are very clear - if they are older than you, you must call them this. When things work out, it is a well oiled machine. When things get out of whack, it’s upsetting. Best advice is always play it safe and always play it polite with Koreans.

Pretend you are a male in your 20s and you are shopping in a department store and spot a shirt that looks nice. If you want to find out more about it (or to haggle) the best way to get the male store clerk’s attention is to respect him by calling him 형. If you’re quite a bit older than the store clerk, then the rules change…but not always…

It may seem daunting at first considering that age isn’t always a determining factor in kinship terms.

For example, I had the pleasure to be university classmates with a feisty Japanese woman (and fellow KC101 student!) that is quite a bit older than me but certainly still winning over hearts of young men from all over the world (치요카누나 - remember me kindly ) Even though there existed a clear age difference, it was impolite to refer to her as 아주머니 - a polite title that I would have used had I met her outside of the university in a “normal” setting. But since we were both university students in the same level course, we were in the same social class - so in that case, she became my 누나 - a title that made me very comfortable and probably helped me feel that much closer to her. So in that case, age didn’t matter as much as class . Granted, this isn’t a super-common scenario but it was a real-life scenario that we must be aware of.

Thoughts?

안녕하세요. 현우예요.

I am back in my hometown for 추석 (Chuseok) and as it’s expected each year, the trip back home isn’t always very easy, with all the people moving all together. But I made it back home safely. The bus ride took the time it usually takes - about 4 hours, and I arrived home at 4:00 am after taking a taxi from the bus terminal to my parents’ house. The bus fare from Seoul to Korea was around 22,000 won, and the taxi fare was around 6,000 won.

The bus stopped at a service station for 15 minutes so that people can use the bathroom or get something to eat or drink. And here’s a video to show you what a 고속도로(express way) 휴게소(service station) looks like at night.

재미있게 보세요 ^^

Wow, it’s been a long time since I last posted here. April 1st, to be exact! These past 5 months have passed by so quickly, it doesn’t even feel like it’s been 5 months. I’ve been really busy with Uni this year, even though it’s only part time. It’s quite odd, but part time study seems to take up almost as much time as full time study does!

I’ve been doing Linguistics this year, and since the weekend I’ve been putting together my final essay. At the beginning of October I’ll have my final exam … but it doesn’t stop there! I’m trying to get together some random studies so that I have a better chance of getting into the university that I want to go to in September 2009 (The School of Oriental and African Studies!). So, at the end of this month, I’m starting another part time course, this time in Romanticism.

I feel like I’m just a study machine these days ;_; I didn’t even get a summer break on this course!

With study taking up so much of my energy and focus, I’ve barely had time for anything else in my life. TV shows, games, friends … it’s been so hard to find time for these things.

But it made me realise something that I like so much about music: it’s almost impossible to not have time for music. There are some things that you just can’t do at the same time as other things. Like studying and gaming, you can’t do both of those at the same time. Or hanging out with friends and studying, that one can be a little hard to manage as well if your friends aren’t studying too.

But you can listen to music while you do everything else. Reading, studying, writing up notes, doing essays, talking to friends, eating, travelling … so while everything else, even friends, has been pushed to the side so that I can focus on my studies, music has been the one thing that I haven’t had to do that with.

It’s probably also the one thing that’s kept me sane since my studies started XD

So for my return to the blog, I’ve decided I’ll pimp out some of the music that I’ve been really, really enjoying over the past few months. Maybe you’ll find something you like in this, too!

First and foremost, my favourite boyband 신화 released their 9th album. This was a bittersweet moment for a lot of us 신화 fans, as it marks the last time we’ll hear them together until they’ve all finished their military service. Since they’re all going at different times, it could be 4 or 5 years until they’re together again as 신화. Run was their main song from that album, though I was really disappointed that due to solo schedules, they never did have a comeback stage or do a proper promotional run for the album. But despite the lack of performances, this album sold really, really well.

My favourite hiphop group Epik High also released an album, their fifth one. Pieces, Part One was not as awesome as my two favourite albums of theirs, Swan Songs and Remapping the Human Soul, but it was still pretty damn awesome. One is such a catchy song, even my friends who didn’t like Epik High loved this song. Catchy as One was, though, it was Breakdown that I loved even more. This song finally converted one of my friends who insisted Epik High weren’t made of awesome. 우산 was also quite nice, though I like the MV’s concept more than I like the song itself.

The man I fangirl more about than anything else in my life, 김동완, a member of 신화, finally released his second solo album the secret between us; part II. Sadly my two favourite songs didn’t get MVs, but 남자의 사랑 was also really good.

신혜성, also from 신화, also relased another solo album recently. Side 1 - Live and Let Live saw him stepping away from his signature ballads and experimenting with a few different styles instead. He recieved some criticism for the change, but I personally really enjoyed it. It was refreshing and different, and showed that he can do more than just sing ballads. I’ll link you to a live this time, because my favourite song, Awaken, doesn’t have an MV for it D: so, you can watch 신혜성’s comeback performance of 그대라서 and Awaken, backed by rock group N.E.X.T.

Big Bang released another mini album, Stand Up. I’ve been paying increasingly more attention to these guys since last year. I really, really, REALLY loved 하루 하루. Oh My Friend was a really fun song XD it features No Brain, a pretty big name in the punk scene.

FTIsland also released their second album, Colorful Sensibility. I’ve been following these guys since just before their debut, and I think they have a lot of talent and potential! 사랑후애 was really good. I am hoping that in the near future, one of these boys is going to start dabbling in composing, because then I’ll have no complaints at all :3

Simon Dominic released his first album, which made me a very happy person, and then a very sad person because I haven’t been able to buy it anywhere D:

Then there was a bunch of other stuff like 배치기 and MC 몽 and 윤하, and the discovery of older groups and older releases like Rocket Diary (which I also can’t find anywhere to buy, so I wanted to steal my friend’s CD XD;; ), and I can’t even think what else, there’s been so much good stuff this year and I’ve really appreciated it, because it’s been one of the few things I’ve been able to hang onto even while studying so much.

And this isn’t related to Korean music at all, but in May I got to spend a weekend in Paris with a French friend of mine, and I finally got to see L’Arc~en~Ciel, a Japanese rock band that I’ve loved for several years now! I honestly never thought I’d get to see them, and I knew better than to hold my breath hoping that they would come to Europe, but finally they did! Ahhh! I was so happy XD

I’m really glad that I enjoy music as much as I do, cos I kinda wonder sometimes … what would I do if I didn’t like music so much? I mean, I have lots of other interests too, but I haven’t had any time for them, no matter how much I like them - so imagine how boring my life might have been these past months if I didn’t take such insane amounts of happiness from music, the one interest that demands so little time to itself!