Posted on 10/13/2014 7:15:13 AM PDT by Citizen Zed
A SOUTH KOREAN saying claims that a stone thrown from the top of Mount Namsan, in the centre of the capital Seoul, is bound to hit a person with the surname Kim or Lee. One in every five South Koreans is a Kim—in a population of just over 50m. And from the current president, Park Geun-hye, to rapper PSY (born Park Jae-sang), almost one in ten is a Park. Taken together, these three surnames account for almost half of those in use in South Korea today. Neighbouring China has around 100 surnames in common usage; Japan may have as many as 280,000 distinct family names. Why is there so little diversity in Korean surnames?
Korea’s long feudal tradition offers part of the answer.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
exactly
“Are you Kim of the Busan clan?” or whatnot
Her debut was a couple months ago, she is a very very new “idol”
Thanks for that tip, I’ll check it out.
As for the living conditions of the newbies, I saw that in the very early episodes of Roommate when they showed where Chanyeol of EXO lived in the dorm with his fellow members. It appears that it’s tough to break in, no matter where you’re from, but with hard work and good luck, you can achieve success and wealth, and the more you succeed, the more independence you can have.
With that said, it amazes me that even the successful people there (at least appear to) remain humble and grateful to their fans. I know they only show what they want to be seen, but I haven’t yet heard any of them lecture on how others should behave. Our American celebrities could learn a lot from that.
In ep 1 of Infinite Youth! one of the girls is from a band that is sharing a “basement: apartment but the windows they do have are covered with foil, to keep heat out I guess.
If I was running their management agency I would have been embarrassed by that and they’d be getting a new apartment.
Apparently though, yes they have to put in a lot of work to get anywhere. Their celebrities are not nearly as wealthy as the ones in this country. It’s a small country and they have all those people competing for attention.
I read there were 124 production companies and only about 36 slots for prime time shows on Korean television. AND some shows are made by the networks too.
Yes, that little room with the tiny bathroom was a palace compared to sleeping on the floor with a couple other guys.
When our teacher told to line up alphabetically by last name, the first kid’s name was Van Abma.
Idol girls learning about life on a farm. I’d never heard about KBS World before, but now I know what I’m going to be spending a few hundred hours watching. They have a lot of stuff on there that can’t be found on Dramafever, viki or soompi. Thanks!
I wish the other Korean networks would do this but KBS is a little like a BBC, they don’t need ads for revenue.
I can’t imagine sending American celebrities to a farm for a couple days a week. I don’t the animals would be safe.
No. I simply have a keen interest in South Korea, with a really enjoyable stint stationed there briefly a long time ago.
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