Back from hiatus!

After about three months I'm back everyone!

Now I'm not crazy about this rookie girl group, but I guess they're worth noticing.


See the scene where all the girls are sitting and smiling at the camera? What does that remind you of? A similar scene in Girls' Generation's "Gee" video which was out back in 2009! Or maybe that's the intended effect?

Debuting just last June, Gugudan was formed after two of the nine members appeared on Mnet's "Produce 101", a survival show where 101 female trainees from various labels are pitted against each other. The girls share a management company with Vixx, who is already famous for its dark concepts, and that being said it's no surprise that Gugudan seems to follow that route. Except of course being a girl group with mostly teenage members Gugudan won't have dark concepts...I can see them becoming a mix of Girls' Generation and Orange Caramel. Girls Generation for the amount of members they have and Orange Caramel for the playful concepts inspired by famous fairy tales.

I can also see member Kim Sejeong, who already gained massive popularity in "Produce 101" (appearance starts at 0:42), as the next Im Yoona!

First entry in twenty-sixteen

Back from a two-month long unannounced hiatus everyone! Oh and annyeong haseyo to my Korean visitors. I got more visitors from South Korea than ever while I was away.

Been busy teaching short semester (which would be called summer school overseas but Indonesia is a tropical country) and tending to my thesis students - all but one got panicky around a week before the final draft deadline. Talk about typical.

Now on to what I wanna talk about.

I know it's super duper late but I've been crazy about this single lately.



I have almost as many followers on Instagram as she does...which is not a big number. "Clutch Bag", which was out in September 2014, is her last single so far, and as not all solo artists in the K-pop realm are as lucky as IU (real name Lee Jieun) or Eric Nam, there's not a wonder that Hi.Ni is so little known despite debuting in 2012. On top of that, there's very little information about her on the internet. Her birth date is still unknown, and a source mentions that her real name is Won Yuri. If the latter is true, there's not a wonder in the world why she goes under a special stage name (the same source says that "Hi.Ni", which is Vietnamese for "baby", was given by her dad when he was working in Vietnam) because otherwise she'd be mistaken for Kwon Yuri of Girls' Generation.

People who have listened to "Clutch Bag" complain about the rap part a lot, and at first I did find it annoying. But overtime I just got used to it - it didn't grow on me, I just got used to it. And I started listening to the song just as I started to collect clutch bags. Hi.Ni is so talented, she definitely deserves lots more love. For more Hi.Ni, check out her earlier single "Legend of Tears."

On Nine Muses' comeback...

After much anticipation, Nine Muses is finally back, having hibernated for one year due to the painful loss of three members: Lee 'Leesem' Hyunjoo, Park Eunji and Ryu Sera. That's rapper, main dancer and main singer respectively. And they're back with two new members: Jo Sojin, who previously appeared in the sub-unit Nasty Nasty with another Nine Muses member Park Kyungri and ZE:A member Kevin Kim, and Lee Keumjo.

It took me a long time to decide what to focus on regarding Nine Muses and their comeback, but I finally decided to focus on their new single "Drama" and Sera's decision to continue her showbiz career apparently as indie musician.

In light of their comeback in mid-2003 with the single "Wild", Sera released a cover of Joss Stone's "Karma." It was professionally shot though it was very low-budget, filmed on the set of "Wild" music video. It kept Mines on the edges of their seats, as promises of her solo career seemed to be looming.



Sera released a couple more cover videos courtesy of Star Empire, but no actual solo career materialised, until news broke that she 'graduated' from Nine Muses.

Now fast forward to January 23 2015 when Nine Muses released a new single titled "Drama." Take a look.



Eldest member Moon Hyuna just celebrated her 28th birthday on January 19. Yes that's her international age, which means in Korean age she's 29 years old. Anyone with any real musical talent and self respect would want to stop prancing around pulling aegyo and looking every bit manufactured past the age of 25. Since her departure, Sera has been very active on her own YouTube channel that she calls RyuTube, releasing cover songs and songs that she writes herself. I guess it was the same reason for Jessica Jung, who left Girls' Generation in October 2014 to focus on her fashion line, Blanc & Eclare.

Guilty pleasure...

Ok, I admit I have a thing for over the top, ridiculous Korean girlbands! A few months ago I wrote about Orange Caramel, now I've just discovered f(x)! Check them out.


It's impressive how they managed to bring a tank and dye it black and pink...

My favorite is a tie between Krystal Jung, younger sister of Girls' Generation member Jessica and former child model (when she was six, Krystal appeared in Shinhwa's "Wedding March" video), and Amber Liu. Amber Liu is actually an ABC (that's American-born Chinese for those who have just returned from Uranus), and she stands out because, well, she's the boyish one. Amber reminds me of Ella Chen from Taiwanese girlband S.H.E for those who are old enough to remember the early 2000s, except maybe Ella wasn't that boyish if I remember correctly.

I guess it's a current trend in the Korean music industry to recruit Chinese members. Besides Amber Liu, f(x) has another Chinese member, Victoria Song. Another Korean girlband, Miss A, also has two Chinese members, Meng Jia and Wang Feifei.

Tackiest K-pop act ever?

I've looked at music videos of many Korean girlbands in the past ten years, from Fin KL to Girls' Generation, but have never come across anything so tacky.



At check out the end of the music video. What a rip-off of the Miss Dior Cherie commercial!

Negative notes aside, I'd like to wish Orange Caramel's Oh Hye Rin (better known as Reina, the bob-haired one) a happy 22nd birthday as it's already May 7 in Indonesia. Seriously chick, don't you feel you're too old to sing silly songs in even sillier costumes?

Spot the goof!

Hi! *waves hand in front of the camera, Natalie Tran-style* Long time no see.

I'm totally in love with Gee, a single by a Korean mega girl group (by "mega" I mean there are nine girls in the group!) called Girls' Generation. Not sure I like their other singles like Oh! and Chocolate Love, but of all the videos on my YouTube favorite list, this one receives the most plays...Yeah, I'm pampering my inner 13-year-old. Hahahah. These girls are so pretty in the "I want to have a daughter so beautiful just like that!" kind of way. Who cares if the girls really did have plastic surgeries, like most Korean stars are rumored to have.

Enough with the gushing. Now can you spot something wrong in the video? I'll tell you a clue. It's in the beginning.



Found it? Given up already? Ok...have a look at one mannequin that's not lined up yet, that of a girl (I've learned their names but still can't tell which is which!), at 0:03. Then pay attention when the guy is carrying the mannequin. When the girl is not carried yet, you get a close-up shot of her so you can observe that there are curls in her hair. When she's carried, you get a medium range shot where you can clearly see the girl's hair is totally straight. That's where the goof is! The "mannequin" in the close-up shot in the very beginning is a real girl. The "girl" the guy is carrying is a mannequin! Why couldn't the director of this video find a wig that was like the girl's hair and put it on the mannequin? If I were a movie or music vido director I'd pay painstaking attention to realness.