Particular hoobaes to Big Mama...

I'm currently crazy about "Quecera Cera" (yes believe your eyes, that's exactly how the song is titled) by Bay.B, a three-member girl group under Can Entertainment. Check out the video below.


That's such a half-hearted bathtub scene. No one takes a dip in their underwear.

If you've been into K-pop longer than the kids in SM Rookies have been alive, I'm sure the girlband's sound reminds you of the greatness that was Big Mama. For those who missed out on Big Mama...


So far, no recent K-pop groups have ever done justice to this song. Spica covered "Break Away" well but they still lacked the oomph factor, and Sistar was just hopeless...

I'm not trying to claim that Bay.B is the new Big Mama, but the "Break Away" video to me is like a sign that in the near future there will a girl group that's about as talented. And that girl group will consist of slim yeojas. I'm sure that even though Can Entertainment has never blatantly marketed Bay.B as the next Big Mama, they strive to be taken as seriously as people took their legendary sunbaes. Check out this video of Bay.B practicing before their debut in May 2014, covering Big Mama's "Woman" and "Nevermind."


Too bad the video is edited so we can't see which parts of the songs Bay.B might be lacking in. Can they pull Big Mama songs off? You be the judge.

My favourite is Seola, the visual, not only because she has a nice voice (although she's not the main vocalist), looks unique compared to the other two who could be mistaken for any random girl group member, but also because she's a Taurean (haha yeah me and my penchant for fellow Taureans.) She's the one wearing a white top while singing the second song in the practice video, showing a Taurean trait of dressing with flair.

EDIT (8/30/14): Looks like the girls' popularity is growing, as I've just found a Bay.B forum where a Spanish-speaking fan figures out what the girls' stage names might mean: leader Miho's name is likely to be pronounced like "mio" which in Spanish means "mine", "Seola" is pronounced "sola" which means "alone" and maknae Miel's name means "honey" in French. Pure genius. I've also found one of the girls' real name, which I won't publish here in case she might want to go anonymous and attack me...like some model did.

For someone's milestone...

Happy birthday RHS!
A warm welcome to the club!
Things went sour
We grew apart
Some call it growing up
But the beautiful memories we shared stay in my heart
Always have
Always will

Second hello from Oxford!

Hey you.
I'm glad we met during the conference.
Even if we don't end up together.
Even if we won't ever see each other again.
We'll keep these three days of the 2014 Oxford summer in our hearts and minds.
Forever.

Hello from Oxford!

Yes, here's hoping this isn't going to be my only entry from Oxford, England. I'm currently staying at Mansfield College, which is under Oxford University, to attend a seminar called "Celebrity: Exploring Critical Issues." The seminar runs from July 21 to July 23, and it explores the celebrity realm from many angles. I had the liberty to write a paper on the possibility of Kim Myungsoo's 2013 dating scandals being a publicity stunt to sell products (a much longer version of this entry, really), said paper got selected and will be presented on the last day of the conference in its "Fan(t)asia" section. Also presented in the "Fan(t)asia" section are papers by Renata Iwicka called "There Will Be Blood: A Darker Side of K-pop Fandom" and "Parodic Participation as Consumption of Celebrity Products: The Case of Gangnam Style" by Mingyi Hou.

My paper, titled "The Use of Publicity Stunts in Korean Pop." Feel free to read it and don't forget to give me feedback!

Taking a jab at America - dissecting Alison Gold's "Chinese Food"

I know this is so late, but I've really just discovered "Chinese Food" by Alison Gold. It was released on October 14 2013, and so far it's garnered 15.2 million views. In other words, it's the new "Friday." Looking at the comments on the video, I can't believe they call this video racist, and while a lot of them are aware that this video is meant to be a joke, many have missed the note that...this is actually a jab at America. Take a look at the video.



Let's dissect the symbols one by one, shall we!

The guy in the beginning and the cashier girl don't look Chinese, despite the girl having slanting eyes. They look more Cambodian or Vietnamese than Chinese. Aren't Hollywood movies notorious for hiring just about any Asian actor to play just about any Asian character? Exhibits: Chinese Zhang Ziyi, Michelle Yeoh and Gong Li all play lead characters in "Memoirs of A Geisha" (2005) and another Chinese actor Chow Yun Fat playing King Mongkut in "Anna and The King" (1999.) Certainly Hollywood producers never have Asian audience in mind when they make cast choices for Asian characters.

Gold singing, "After ballin', I go clubbin'" She was only 11 when the video was released, why is she singing about clubbing? I honestly don't remember any clubbing lyrics by any teenaged girl group of the late '90s and early '00s (though I swear to God I must have heard them...my brain is still searching - is it a song by PYT?) Nevermind, I can pinpoint many examples of teenaged girls under 18 being sexualised, which I think can serve as an equivalence to 11-year-olds singing about clubbing. Check out the video below.
This video was released circa 2002, when the girls were 14-17 years old. They're No Secrets, and if you have no recollection of them, don't worry - you didn't miss out on anything.

Gold and the girls wearing kimonos. I have an impression that her producer Patrice Wilson (the black guy in the panda costume) deliberately shot this scene to emphasise his point that The US can't tell Asian countries apart. Sometimes this is true - and demonstrated in movies. Exhibit: in the movie "New Year's Eve" (2011), Kim (Sarah Jessica Parker) spends a day at a Balinese spa...which is decorated with fake bamboo trees, little bamboo bridges over ponds and message therapists dressed in white kimono-like robes!

Patrice Wilson dressed as a panda - and nope the panda here doesn't serve only as a symbol of China. Ever heard the joke "pandas are the least racist animals, they're black, white and from China"? Ha!

Oh, and last but not least! Alison Gold is blonde and in some pictures her eyes seem to be blue. Remember the dumb blonde jokes? And if you've been in any kind of Cultural Studies class, you're most likely familiar with idea that the symbol of white purity is a blonde, blue-eyed maiden. That's why in many Hollywood movies (or Western movies in general), princesses, Aphrodite and angels are played by blonde and blue-eyed actresses. This can potentially be expanded into an entry of its own, even a legit ten-page academic paper so I'll stop at that.

Observing symbols is fun because you get to uncover hidden messages in everything!