Q&A with Singer Jennifer Chung
TheOtherAsians
Talented, down-to-earth, and bubbly. These are the general adjectives that come to mind whenever someone meets Jennifer Chung for the first time. It’s inspiring to think that a simple girl publishing YouTube videos for her friends in a college dorm would eventually become a voice to the Youtube generation. Who would’ve known right? She has been able to engage an audience all over the world using her raw lyrics and powerful vocals balancing the whole shebang of student life –classes, loans, late night study sessions, part-time jobs.
Now with school out of the way, she is now settling in with her new life in Los Angeles, with a debut album releasing VERY soon! Join OA as we sit down with Jennifer and she shares her experience as a pioneer in new media, her feelings about her video featured on New York’s Times Square, and her development as an artist.
Ken Jeong: Friend or Foe?
Hyphen
That’s the question that kept popping up in my head as I looked at the GQ photoshoot featuring Ken Jeong and the fall season’s hottest corduroy pants. The actual task of showcasing those pants, mind you, falls not to Jeong but the male model with the washboard abs, canoodling with a 19-year-old female model. Jeong’s role is to “photobomb” each shot with nothing more than his own brashness; clothing optional.
The GQ photoshoot is the type of physical comedy audiences have come to expect from Jeong, who gained fame as the flamboyant gangster Mr. Chow from the Hangover series. In the first Hangover, a nude Chow introduced himself by leaping out of a car trunk and beating the movie’s three protagonists with a tire iron.
Fall Restaurant Preview: Jung Sik – Spicy, Crispy, Modern and Korean
New York Times
[Andrea Ahan] is one of four young Koreans and Korean-Americans who are opening Jung Sik. All of them, including the chef (for whom the restaurant is named), the pastry chef and the sommelier, attended the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., where, Ms. Ahan said, they bonded during trips to Fort Lee, N.J., to eat authentic Korean food like dukbokki (chewy rice cakes) and tofu stewed with kimchi.
Jung Sik Yim, the 33-year-old chef, went on to internships in New York and Spain before returning to Seoul to open Jung Sik Dang, in 2009. Said to be the first restaurant in which molecular gastronomy was applied to Korean ingredients, it was a huge hit.
Garden Grove doctor arrested in fraud sweep
Orange County Register
A doctor and an administrator at a Garden Grove medical clinic have been arrested for allegedly billing Medicare for physical therapy treatment that was never provided, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Wednesday.
Dr. Byung Ho Pak and Mary Lim were arrested Wednesday morning as part of federal sweep in six regions of the U.S. Pak and Lim, while working at Seoul East West Medical Center, billed Medicare $2 million for physical therapy, according to an indictment. Patients, however, were given treatments that weren’t covered such as acupuncture and moxibustion, a traditional Chinese medicine skin treatment.
Korean Canadian store owner hits the jackpot
Winnipeg Free Press
A Winnipeg convenience store owner is $1 million richer after a lottery ticket he purchased at his store hit the jackpot.
Byung Cho won $1 million in the Western 649 lottery, according to the Western Canada Lottery Corp. Cho purchased a $28 ticket at his shop, Mak Milk, at 661 Talbot Ave. The next day, Cho checked his lotto numbers and discovered he had the winning numbers.
Konnect Magazine Interviews Philadelphia Eagles Cheerleader Connie Chung
Konnect Magazine
I love everything there is about being a Korean American. I embrace being an American but I also embrace being a Korean. I don’t think you can find anyone else that is more proud of being a Korean American than I. My favorite type of food is Korean and my favorite thing to do is Karaoke. I taught myself how to read and write Korean in middle school by watching popular Korean music variety shows such as Inkigayo and Music Bank. I love Korean Pop music and can watch KPOP music videos for hours and learn the dance routines. In fact, when I was in college I participated in many cultural talent shows and performed many KPOP dances! I’m a Korean American and I’m VERY proud of it.
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Rare Color Photo of the Kim Dynasty
Chosun Ilbo
This rare photo of reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-il with his younger sister Kyong-hui (right) and his father Kim Il-sung (center) was recently published by a nkleadershipwatch.wordpress.com, a blog dedicated to North Korea issues.
Why Thailand has become a popular path to freedom for North Korean defectors
Christian Science Monitor
A growing number of North Korean defectors are crossing illegally into Thailand via a new ‘underground railroad’ because Thailand processes defectors and sends them to South Korea quickly.
Kim Jong-Il’s Human Rights Atrocities
New York Times (Letter to the editor)
North Korea is ranked in every survey of freedom and human rights as the worst of the worst. A network of at least six camps for political prisoners, holding up to 200,000 people, forms the core of Kim Jong-il’s terrifying control apparatus. Shocking accounts of the worst possible forms of torture have emerged from survivors of the gulags who have escaped.
What should the international community do?
First, end its silence. It is extraordinary that a situation as severe as North Korea is so seldom discussed. When North Korea is on the agenda, it is in the context of its nuclear program, regional security or food shortages. Rarely do the North Korean gulags enter the consciences of international policymakers. That must change.
Minn. man sentenced for harboring illegal aliens
WXOW.com (La Crosse, Wisc.)
An Eagan man has been sentenced to two years in prison for harboring illegal aliens so they could work in his siding business.
U.S. District Judge Joan N. Ericksen on Wednesday sentenced 63-year-old Joo Ok Kim on one count of harboring and concealing aliens.
Kim pleaded guilty in August 2010. In his plea agreement, he admitted that from November 2008 through March 2009 he kept five Mexican nationals in his basement.
In Immigrant Areas, a Culture Clash Over Gay Marriage
New York Times
A bar in Sunnyside, Queens recently held a raffle for a same-sex wedding reception, which included a horse-drawn carriage as transportation.
Neighbors said they would boycott the bar. Bloggers posted reports of past health violations there. Larry Yang, the Korean-American owner of a hardware store next door, said he resented such a public promotion of same-sex marriage. He said many among the large number of Korean-American Christians in Queens felt similarly but feared that if they spoke out they would be demonized by a liberal majority.
“If that horse-drawn carriage rides by my store, I will make sure my kids do not see it,” Mr. Yang, 45, said. “I am worried about what kind of message gay marriage is sending.”
Korean women use invention to jump over gender gap
Yonhap
Lee Bok-hui used to wonder what happened to all the leftover stones she saw lying around construction sites. Now she knows exactly where a percentage of those leftovers go — into an eco-friendly inflammable sheeting-material used to reinforce electrical outlets, which she invented specifically to reuse that construction site waste.
Lee debuted her invention at the Korea International Women’s Invention Exposition in May, where she won second place in the expo’s title prize.
S. Korea court upholds Somali pirate life sentence
AFP via Yahoo News
A South Korean appeals court on Thursday upheld a life sentence on a Somali pirate convicted of hijacking a South Korean-operated ship in the Arabian Sea and trying to murder the captain.
The high court in the southern port of Busan confirmed the sentence passed in late May on Mahomed Araye after the 23-year-old had appealed.
Prosecutors had sought the death sentence for Araye for shooting and seriously injuring Captain Seok Hae-Kyun of the chemical carrier Samho Jewelry with an AK rifle.
Suicide main cause of death for those under 40 in S. Korea
Yonhap
Suicide was the No. 1 cause of death among people under 40 years of age in South Korea last year, with the nation’s overall suicide rate also marking the highest among the world’s major countries, a report showed Thursday.
Former classmate charged with murder of Michelle Le
San Francisco Chronicle
A Union City woman was charged today with murder in the slaying of a nursing student who vanished from a Hayward parking garage more than three months ago.
Giselle Esteban, 27, who is pregnant, is to appear this afternoon on a charge of murder at the Hayward Hall of Justice. She is accused of killing her former high school friend Michelle Le, 26, whose body hasn’t been found.
