Psy’s free concert in Seoul_ let’s celebrate his “Gangnam Style” global sensation
The South Korean rapper returned to his homeland recently to put on a free concert at Seoul Plaza on Thursday night (04/10/12); an event that was expected to attract about 50,000, but which in the end brought together far more – a massive 80,000.
The huge concert even attracted more than 700 journalists from across the globe as the “Gangnam Style” phenomenon continues to sweep across the globe.
People were reserving their spots at the concert a full 12 hours before the concert was due to begin to ensure they got the best views.
When the concert finally began the giants screens that had been erected on the stage flashed the words: “This performance will be watched worldwide, so let’s show the whole world that Koreans have good manners.”
Seoul’s authorities wanted to put on a warm welcome to their newest global superstar, and it has been reported that the City contributed about $360,000 to the event and even extended public transportation to and from the area until 2 a.m. to ensure everyone who wanted to go could come.
Psy has become a global superstar in the past few months as his hit single “Gangnam Style” has become number one in a series of countries. The popular rapper, who is not new by any means in his homeland, had said that he was dance to “Gangnam Style” topless if he hit number 1 on the prestigious Billboard Hot 100 chart. On Thursday it was announced that it remained at number 2 for the second week running, however, the rapper delighted fans by performing his famous horse dance topless anyway.
Psy told the crowd that he was “the only singer to be called a new artist abroad after being active for 12 years.”
In addition to the 80,000 fans attending the event live, thousands more joined live streams online through Live Seoul, YouTube and YouStream. However, the servers of some crashed under the weight of traffic as more than expected numbers attempted to join the concert online.
Psy told the crowd: “I knew one day someone big would come out of Korea. I just never thought it would be me.”
School lunch in South Korea
In Korea, mothers do not need to prepare children’s lunch boxes since every school has its own kitchen to provide students’ fresh and healthy meals to ensure balanced diet (The fees are generally minimum and in Seoul, most of the schools provide free lunch to students.).
In general, Korean school lunches consist of rice, soup, kimchi, protein-focused side dishes that are based on meat, fish or tofu, vegetables or fruit. These foods are minimally processed and normally low fat, as other Korean dishes. Furthermore, the South Korean government is strictly controlling school meals’ (as well as children’s ordinary snacks’) sugar and fat limit, by running several campaigns and educational programs during school lunch times.
These school meals are not only making busy working mums free, but also contributing health education and providing balanced meals to fast growing Korean students.
By the way, don’t forget to say “잘 먹겠습니다 (jal meokket seumnida!)!”, before you eat meals!
Ashley Jang (Korean teacher)
Nha Trang – the Pearl of the Far East Vietnam
Nha Trang is a coastal city of Vietnam as well as a centre of politic, economy, culture, science and travel of Khanh Hoa province, Vietnam. Nha Trang is known as the Pearl of the Far East due to its natural value, beauty and weather. Listed below are must-see destinations when you visit Nha Trang
Tam Island (Hòn Tằm)
Tam Island (Hòn Tằm) is a appealing destination which is 100 ha width. Since it is located 7 km far away from Nha Trang City so visitors need only 7 minutes of travelling by canoe to arrive. This island still remains the beauty and wild of tropical forest and the romance of a long beach. Tourists can visit the Bat cave which lied behind this island and participate in many beach sports such as paragliding, beach volleyball, kayak and mountain climbing.
Dam Market (Chợ Đầm)
Dam Market, a central market of Nha Trang sea city, is a unique and beautiful construction. It is the biggest market as well as the trade label of this city. Before being constructed as a market, it was a 7 ha of marsh. Dam Market provides many daily stuff , sourvenir and sea food for tourists.
Nha Trang Institute of Oceanography
Nha Trang Institute of Oceanography is an institute studying about the life of sanitary and phytosanitary. It was built by French in 1922 which is considered to be one of the oldest research institutes in Vietnam and the largest collection of ocean life in South East Asia. It is not only a research place but also an attractive destination to tourists, especially who loves marine life.
Lotus – Vietnam’s national flower
Lotus flower has been regarded as Vietnam’s national flower. Lotus symbolizes the beauty, commitment, health, honor and knowledge. Lotus flowers grow from the muddy pond but their seed grow toward the direction of the sun light, which represent the purity of spirit. Lotus is said to be the symbol of summer as it often blossoms in summer time when there is a lot of bright sunlight. At night the flower closes and sinks underwater, at dawn it rises and opens again.
Lotus flowers are beautiful in both appearance and smell. The color of lotus flowers usually are pink, red, white, blue and purple, each color has different meaning but they all have pleasant smell and people simply love them at first sight.
Different part of lotus can be used for different purpose: the flowers are used for praying; the seeds are used for making lotus tea and medicine while the Ativan shop green leaves are used to wrap chicken rice- a very delicious dish. If you visit Viet Nam next time, remember to pay a visit to the lotus pond and you will definitely be amazed by its beauty.
Dim Sum Cart would become history in Hongkong
In many Dim Sum restaurants in Hong Kong, the Dim Sum cart helps the clients to see the food before choosing their favorites. It has been a tradition in Hong Kong restaurants for many years. However, the scene of which waiters pushing the Dim Sum Cart between each table for clients to choose various Dim Sum dishes would become history. Firstly, due to the limited spaces and the high-paid rent, the owners of those restaurants decide not to use Dim Sum cart to save the budget and place more tables to serve more clients instead. In addition, some clients think freshly made Dim Sum dishes are more delicious compared to those stored in the cart.
In the near future, people might not be able to see the scene in which the waiters go around in the restaurant and call out “jiaozi, har gow, siu mai, steamed buns………”
Some Stories About Our Japanese Course 13
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes and lessons included the usual kinds of activities that aim to develop speaking, reading, listening, writing and making and performing dialogues. Apart from the usual course book, Genki 1, I used A First Couse in Japanese (by FudekoReekie),Busy People Book 2 in particular. And I used handouts with use of a such language textbooks and others to teach time, words for days of the week, months, dates, names of the products commonly shown at department stores and other shops, foods etc. That also enforced learning use of Hiragana for all classes, and for Beginners 2, Katakana scripts, and some simple Kanji for Pre-Intermediate 1. For keen and hard working Pre-Intermediate 1 class, we did some pages for Kanji learning with use of “Koko-Seikatsu: Kanji Work Book”.
(As I normally ask nearly every class sometime during the courses,) all classes of group lessons made dialogues by pairs or group later in the 10 weeks’ courses (normally about 8 sentences per person) with use of grammar and vocabulary of the unit(s) taught and language taught from the handouts. That practice was very useful and stimulating for students. Also, that will create new interactions among the students and expressions of their own interest and thoughts while using Japanese language.
I taught/asked classes to sing 4 ~ 5 Japanese songs as before, at the start of each lesson. That seemed creating students’ opening their minds instead of being quiet and helping them/class be better prepared for Japanese language/linguistic learning and cultural experiences. I also regard such activityas experiences of feeling a universal perspective and such value since most of the songs sung have sensitivity and compassion to nature and living things and such positive or common healthy thoughts about human life and function.
One of the recently taught songs, i.e. “Song of Crickets” (Koorogi no uta) is beautiful, relaxingand peaceful in the concepts and onomatopoeia used was distinctive. Its English version and onomatopoeia in English was distinctive too. The music of the song was composed by Yasushi Akutagawa, who is a highly known composer and conductor and the music in the CD was recorded impressively with use of occasional insects (crickets’) sound. Those songs were sung with use of the handout written in Hiragana.
- Also, I informed the majority of my students about the following websites related to Japanese culture, Mt Fuji and Hiragana practice. They are the following.
- Yomiuri online newspaper shows about 40 video clips with stories about a variety of cute, beautiful animals in Japanese, taken by Japanese animal lovers. Amazing,funny and adorable collection. It is at: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/stream/m_pet/pet021.htm. Titled “BuumuPetto” in Japanese. They can be seen on mobile phones too.
- The website, http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/adv/fujisan/gallery.htm shows amazing inspiring collection of Mt Fuji. They are excellent photos taken by brilliant photographers.
- The website, http://www.guidetojapanese.org/pdf/hiragana_trace_sheet.pdf was informed by one of my past students. It has the sheet for Hiragana practice etc. It’ll be good to be used by Beginners’ students.
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
5.10.12
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