KoreanClass101.com Blog

The Korean music industry is a strict place. While America and other Western countries seem to have few problems with the content of songs as long it isn't incredibly offensive or full of swearing, Korea on the other hand seems to have very strict ideas about what is and is not suitable for the public. Bad language is an obvious one, but what takes me by surprise every single time is that one of the things they ban songs for - or at least demand lyric changes for - is sexually suggestive content. 비's latest title song Rainism has recently been banned in it's original form because the the government feels some of the lyrics are unhealthy material for young Koreans, and encourage sexual behaviour. The original song has been removed from... Show more

Driving a car in Korea. Apparently, it's the hardest thing on the planet. I know people who have traversed the planet, left their home country, diligently learnt the English language (not exactly an easy task), acculturated themselves to American culture only to be terrified of getting a driver's license and driving to the grocery store. I mean after all they have accomplished, why is driving a car all of a sudden this insurmountable obstacle? Not that I blame anyone for being a bit apprehensive. This chart and map isn't exactly comforting. Not to mention that out of 29 countries researched, Korea ranked 27. In this case, the bronze medal is especially not something to be proud of. It perplexes me because Japan has a reported... Show more

안녕하세요 ^^ 현우예요. Here's Korean Handwriting video part 2!! I hope you'll enjoy it!! ^^

Last week was the 10th anniversary of MNet KM Music Festival Awards, also known as MKMF. Award/performance shows like this generally aren't my thing, I believed I watched it (or something similar) last year and ended up thoroughly annoyed at some of the choices and the balantant insider favouritism and music scene politics, so I decided to spare myself the annoyance and not sit through it. But I got all caught up on the end results, and thought it'd make a good (and long, sorry XD) blog entry for today. The actual event took place on November 15th, but overseas viewers could cast their votes online on the MKMF 2008 website back in October. Nominees for the Best Male Newcomer category were JYP's two boybands 2AM (이노래) and 2PM (10점 만점에... Show more

 Subways in Korea. The Seoul Metropolitan Subway is a thing of beauty. It's quick, efficient, and cheap. The subway itself also divided into three separate but similar entities: Seoul Metro, Korail, and SMRT (Seoul Metropolitan Rapid Transit corporation). Where have I heard of SMRT before? Our diligent 현우 has posted a nice introduction to to Seoul's subways in this forum post. Note the loudspeaker - each stop is announced in both English and Korean. It is very foreigner friendly in that regard. The air conditioning doesn't hurt, either :) 1000 원 buys you up to 6 miles worth of track and 100 원 for every additional 3 miles. Not bad. Actually that's more than not bad - that's a great deal. Remember the post about the size of Korea?... Show more