Music Asia

Kara becomes first Asian girl group to rank in Oricon’s top 5

Korean female idols Kara will become the first Asian girl group to place in the top 10 on Japan’s prestigious Oricon chart, according to Japanese publication Oricon Style on Tuesday….

FT Island unveils teaser video and cover for new album

Korean rock band FT Island unveiled a teaser video and cover for their new mini-album today, according to the band’s agency FNC Music on Wednesday. A press release from FNC…

2PM’s Concert Rapped for Sexual Content

The South Korea Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said it received complaints from the public rapping the 2PM concert last July 31 and August 1 as containing sexual acts…

Ayumi Hamasaki teams up with Tetsuya Komuro

Pop star Ayumi Hamasaki (31) recently announced that she will release her 49th and 50th singles on consecutive weeks next month. On Sunday, it was learned that the first of…

Miss A

Miss A is a group under AQ Entertainment, sub-label of JYPE. Miss A began as a five member group and were known as the JYP Sisters. One of the original…

Open auditions to be held for new Asian girl group

FarWest Entertainment — a production company helmed by former Walt Disney Company (Asia Pacific) president Jon Niermann — and a group of Asian partners are behind a fledgling girl band…

Latest Headlines

Hundreds see K-Pop star Rain start military service

– October 11, 2011Posted in: K-pop News

SEOUL – Hundreds of weeping and cheering fans from China, Japan and Malaysia gathered at a military base outside the South Korean capital of Seoul on Tuesday to bid farewell to Korean pop-star Rain as he signed up for military service.

Jung Ji-hoon, known by his stage name Rain, is part of the”Korean Wave” of drama and popular music that has taken Asia by storm over the past decade and his third album, “It’s Raining”, sold a million copies in Asia after its release in 2004.

“It is so sad that Mr Rain will be gone for two years,” said Sachiko, a weeping Japanese fan who came to Korea for Rain’s last concert and to witness his enlistment.

“I am sure all his fans back in Japan would have wanted to be here today. So we want to make sure we see him off properly.”

As well as music, Rain has built a career in film and began his Hollywood career as a minor character in Wachowski Brother’s”Speed Racer.” He was cast as the lead actor for his second Hollywood film, “Ninja Assassin”, which won him the “Biggest Badass” award from MTV.

The three-times winner of TIME magazine’s annual ‘TIME 100 Poll’ in 2006, 2007 and 2011 will undertake 21 months of compulsory military service in the South Korean armed forces.

“Thank you for loving me so much for the past 10 years.

Goodbye and I’ll be back,” Rain told his fans.

Korean drama heart-throb Hyun Bin, best known for his role in the drama “Secret Garden”, attracted thousands of fans when he signed up for military service this year.

The 28-year-old won a sharpshooter badge and was posted to an island on the tense border with North Korea, which remains technically at war with the South after the Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice.

Hundreds see K-Pop star Rain start military service
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Mothers told to beat gloom by not fussing

– October 11, 2011Posted in: Cantopop

The months of September and October mark the beginning of the school year and a peak period for working mothers who suffer from depression.

Experts of the E-Motion Alliance, who were speaking on the eve of World Mental Health Day, said the academic performance of children is a key factor leading to deteriorating behavior among mothers.

“They tend to focus too much on their children’s studies. They fret about how their children will adapt to the new school environment and stay ahead of schoolmates given the intense competition,” psychiatrist Dominic Lee Tak-shing said yesterday.

“According to traditional family-oriented values, a working mother wants to maintain the image of a perfect wife and mother at home while working like a superwoman outside. This inside- outside pressure results in dismay,” Lee added.

Mikie Wong, who began suffering from depression after having a child 11 years ago, used to work as a secretary but found it difficult to focus after becoming a mother.

Wong, 45, ignored her prolonged symptoms for two years until she developed suicidal thoughts and wanted to die with her daughter in late 2003.

Though she consulted a psychiatrist she did not take her medicines regularly for close to six months.

In 2004, Wong overdosed on sleeping pills due to SARS and the sudden death of Cantopop superstar Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing.

“I even quit my job when my daughter turned six. I was extremely paranoid about her growth and wondered if she would be able to study at a top primary school. Fatigue and serious insomnia trapped me in a dark hole. Depression was suffocating me,” she said.

Lee said many mothers define happiness based on academic performance and blame themselves when children do not meet their expectations.

Lee Antoinette-Marie, specialist consultant in psychology at the Hong Kong Primary Care Foundation, said psychotherapy is aimed at altering negative patterns of thought and behavior and replacing distorted thinking with more realistic and rational ideas.

All in all, Lee suggested: “Mothers should not make a fuss about everything and put less attention on children.”

Korean festival merges tradition, modernity in Ridgefield Park

– October 9, 2011Posted in: K-pop News

Photos: Overpeck Park prepares for Korean Festival

RIDGEFIELD PARK – From the traditional bowls of bibimbap to the new global allure of K-Pop, the Korean harvest festival at Overpeck County Park seemed to have something for everyone on Saturday.

The Korean Produce Association of New York held the annual festival in New Jersey this year, a first in the event’s 29-year history. Thousands of attendees from as far as Cape Cod and as close as Teaneck and Englewood descended on the park for the start of the two-day event featuring Korean food, entertainment and wares.

The shift to New Jersey created some challenges for visitors, many of whom showed up at the Leonia section of Overpeck instead of the Ridgefield Park section where it was held off Challenger Road. But once there, crowds sampled tasty dishes while vendors peddled magazines, handmade soaps, candies and other goods.

Business was steady at the booth run by Sang Lee and his mother, Michelle Park, who operate the Youhun Korean Restaurant in Palisades Park. Lee said they liked that the event drew such a large crowd.

“We have the East Coast of America – New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland,” he said. “But the most important thing is the food.”

The tables under their tent spilled over with Korean delicacies. There was kimbab (Korean-style sushi), dumplings stuffed with minced kimchi and pork, hot dogs deep fried in a corn batter, crispy scallion pancakes, sliced pork and melon-flavored ice cream treats.

Under other tents, vendors grilled fresh fish over coals, barbequed squid and pinched samples of roasted pork straight from the hide of a roasted pig.

At the Allkpop.com tent, teen girls – and a few boys- lined up for a chance to win free K-Pop (Korean popular music) CDs or other prizes.

“It’s like pop music, but in Korean,” Katie Rasallis, 16, of Cape Cod explained of the music genre with a growing American fan base. Her friend Amanda Richards won a CD of the K-Pop star BOA.

Friend Augusta Davis, 17, said they weren’t able to score tickets for Sunday’s big concert featuring a lineup of K-Pop bands and a performance by The Village People, “so we decided to come to the festival.” The concert is expected to draw more than 25,000 fans.

The relocation of the event to New Jersey this year created tensions between the Korean Produce Association of New York and the Korean American Association of New Jersey. The latter group held a harvest festival last weekend in Bergen County, but members felt that they experienced a lower turnout as a result of competition from the New York group’s festival this weekend.

The New York organizers said they were forced to move the festival to Overpeck after they had trouble obtaining a permit in New York, because of the large turnout expected.

Suji Lee, who does marketing for the Korea Central Daily News, said Overpeck Park provides much more space than what the group had in New York, but is a challenge to get to.

“It’s alright because it has more land, but it’s very difficult to come because of the transportation,” she said.

E-mail: rouse@northjersey.com