Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ Reaches Two Billion YouTube Views
Rolling Stone
It’s one small step for man, one giant horse-y dance for mankind. K-Pop sensation Psy’s viral smash “Gangnam Style” has become the first video to hit 2 billion views on YouTube. Yup, that means a viewership equivalent to just under one-third of the global population has spent a combined 504 billion seconds — or, 15,971.1 years — watching “Gangnam Style.” We did it!
Chueotang, the Korean Soup That Will Make You Gorgeous, Even If It’s Not
LA Weekly
Want to be insanely gorgeous or drop-dead handsome? Then eat as much chueotang as you can. This Korean fish soup is said to be a beautifier, and it’s super healthy too. It’s full of calcium, proteins and vitamins that Koreans believe make the complexion sparkly, smooth and fresh. This is a big bonus for eating something that sounds ugly – mudfish (fish that inhabit muddy waters, even burrow into mud. Perhaps you’d rather not know that.)
There Are No Asian-Americans In The Cabinet For The First Time Since 2000
The Daily Beast
The resignation of Veteran Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki means that for the first time since the Clinton Administration that there will be no Asian-American members of the cabinet, a marked shift for a minority community that was once disproportionately overrepresented.
It’s a shift that might have prompted an outpouring of concern if it had occurred to any other minority group, but has been in this case been greeted with nonchalance within the Asian-American community.
That’s Kind of Racist, Dude
The Stranger
I thought I could let this go, but I can’t. A few months ago, I was part of a group of Korean American authors who’d gathered for happy hour at a tony restaurant in downtown Seattle. We’d come to the city from all corners of the country for a literary conference, and we were happy to reunite with one another, feeling festive after a long day of panels and meetings.
When almost all of us were seated, our (white) waiter stood at the head of the table and addressed us. “So, is this your first time in the United States?” he asked our group.
Hole In Con: Korean Households Are Struggling Under Mounting Debt
The Economist
South Korea’s economic growth-spurt was built on the massive debt of its chaebol, huge industrial conglomerates. Now mounting household debt threatens to stunt it. It exceeded 1 quadrillion (1,000 trillion) won for the first time last year. And it is rising much faster than both the country’s GDP and its average household income: in 2012 household debt was 1.6 times that of Koreans’ annual disposable income, compared with an average of 1.3 for the OECD, a group of rich countries. Whereas affluent consumers globally have shed debt since the 2008 financial crisis, South Korea’s pile has steadily grown.
Manila Shelter Is Host to ‘Kopinos’
The Wall Street Journal
Son Bum-sik takes credit for coining the term Kopino. He uses it to describe a person of mixed Korean and Filipino ethnicity. In 2006, he opened a small shelter and school for such children whose mothers can’t afford to take care of them and whose fathers are nowhere to be found.
As a South Korean, “I feel responsible,” says Mr. Son, 50 years old. “Some Korean men take no responsibility if they get their Filipino girlfriends pregnant.”
Since Mr. Son founded the Kopino Children’s Association, around 200 children have lived with him and his Filipino wife Normi. The couple has two Kopino children of their own.
Miller Oh, Buena Park’s Mayor, Guilty of Perjury
OC Weekly
Buena Park Mayor Miller Oh faces more than six years in state prison following his conviction today of five felony counts of perjury.
Hizzoner, whose full name is Sangjin Miller Oh, had essentially denied he was a liar and deadbeat dad with his not guilty plea to multiple counts of perjury by declaration in Superior Court in Westminster. But jurors agreed unanimously today that between Sept. 23, 2004, and July 20, 2009, Oh committed perjury five different times by signing official DMV documents using fraudulent information.
