Donate
Join

Category: Arts & Culture

A Very Asian Guide to Korean Food

Posted on by Yurim Oh

 

Introduce children to Asian cuisine and the #VERYASIAN movement! Written by Michelle Li, A Very Asian Guide to Korean Food introduces young readers to classic and modern Korean dishes and provides fun facts about the foods and culture of Korea.

Michelle Li is an award-winning, veteran journalist and co-founder of the Very Asian Foundation. She started a global movement of unity with the viral hashtag #veryasian after she received a racist voicemail in response to her sharing on-air the Korean foods she eats. She is a vocal advocate for the Asian American community and brings this same pride and energy for her culture to her debut children’s book.

The book is the first in the Very Asian Guide series, a children’s book series that celebrates various Asian cuisines, and is published by Gloo Books, a new children’s book publishing company making books for a more inclusive, just and compassionate future.

Join us for a conversation with Michelle Li.

 

 

A Very Asian Guide to Korean Food with Michelle Li

Tuesday, January 24, 2023 | 6 PM (EST)


 The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

Join our membership program here!

email iconE-News sign-up

 

 

About the Speaker:

Michelle Li is an award-winning, veteran journalist who co-launched The Very Asian Foundation in January 2022 alongside friend and fellow journalist Gia Vang.

Her response to a racist voicemail became a global movement of unity and caught the attention of The Ellen Show. Ellen’s monetary gift of $15,000 helped start the seed money to create a non profit focused on shining a light on Asian experiences through advocacy and celebration.

Michelle spent many years supporting adoptees through heritage camps and volunteer tours to Korea. She also launched a program to support Missouri children in foster care. All of this led to a congressional award in 2010. Michelle’s journalistic work has been honored with a national Peabody Award, several national Murrows, and multiple regional Emmys– often dealing with race or gender inequities. Michelle has appeared on CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, and The Washington Post. A Very Asian Guide to Korean Food is her first children’s book.

Michelle currently resides in St. Louis with her family.

Bong Joon Ho: Dissident Cinema with Karen Han

Posted on by Yurim Oh

Bong Joon Ho: Dissident Cinema by culture writer and screenwriter Karen Han is the first definitive critical and visual survey of the Academy Award–winning South Korean writer/director who has been making critically acclaimed feature films for more than two decades.

Bong Joon Ho: Dissident Cinema by culture writer and screenwriter Karen Han is the first definitive critical and visual survey of the Academy Award–winning South Korean writer/director who has been making critically acclaimed feature films for more than two decades. Brilliantly illustrated and designed by the London-based film magazine Little White Lies, this lush monograph surveys Bong’s full body of work, including his short films and music videos. The accompanying text by Karen Han, interviews with Bong’s key collaborators, and foreword by David Lowery (The Green Knight) flesh out the stories behind Bong’s films and explore his rise in the cultural eye of the West.

Join us for a conversation about Bong Joon Ho’s career with Karen Han.

 

Bong Joon Ho: Dissident Cinema with Karen Han

Tuesday, January 17, 2023 | 6 PM (EST)


 The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

Join our membership program here!

email iconE-News sign-up

 

About the Speaker:

Karen Han is a Korean American culture writer and screenwriter whose work can be found in outlets such as the New York Times, the Atlantic, Vanity Fair, VICE, the Village Voice, New York magazine, and Slate. She has also appeared on television and radio as a critic on Good Morning America, Amanpour & Co., NPR, and WNYC. She lives in Los Angeles.

Author Talks: Bora Chung

Posted on by

 Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and the winner of a PEN/Heim Grant, Cursed Bunny  is the wildly original debut story collection from Bora Chung

“Whether borrowing from fable, folktale, speculative fiction, science fiction, or horror, Chung’s stories corkscrew toward devastating conclusions—bleak, yes, but also wise and honest about the nightmares of contemporary life.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and the winner of a PEN/Heim Grant, Cursed Bunny is the wildly original debut story collection from Bora Chung, a rising star of Korean literature. Published in the US for the very first time and translated by the acclaimed Anton Hur, Chung’s stories are modern fables for the internet age, offering biting critiques on the patriarchy, capitalism, politics, and the reign of big tech. Blending elements of horror, fantasy, surrealism and sci-fi, Chung creates an absurd, chilling universe that illuminates the ills of contemporary society. 

Mirroring the simple style of the fairy tales and legends of storytellers like The Brothers Grimm and Hans Christen Anderson, the ten stories of Cursed Bunny are imaginative, thought-provoking and deeply unsettling, destined to haunt readers for weeks after reading. 

In this episode of Author Talks, Bora Chung discusses her career in Korea and her English debut.

“Cool, brilliantly demented K-horror—just the way I like it!” —Ed Park, author of Personal Days

“Disturbing, chilling, wrenching, and absolute genius. I wanted Chung to write a story about a reader getting a deep look inside her fantastic swirling mind. I had to take breaks and gulps of air before plunging back into each story. Magnetic, eerie, immensely important.“— Frances Cha, author of If I Had Your Face

 

 

Author Talks: Bora Chung

Tuesday, December 6, 2022 | 5 PM (EST)

 

 

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

Join our membership program here!

email iconE-News sign-up

 

About the Speaker:

Bora Chung has written three novels and three collections of short stories and translated modern literary works from Russian and Polish into Korean. After living in the US and studying at Yale University and Indiana University, she moved back to her home country of South Korea, where she taught literature and science fiction at Yonsei University.

Korea & FIFA World Cup

Posted on by

 

South Korea holds the proud distinction of being the first independent Asian country to participate in a FIFA World Cup tournament in 1954. Still, Korea’s success in soccer is forever linked with the 2002 World Cup: while co-hosting the tournament with Japan, Korea became the first team outside of Europe and America to reach the semi-finals. That event propelled Korea to the next stage in the world of soccer, as it became a home of world-class players, a robust professional soccer league, and the most dedicated fans.

On the eve of Korea’s eleventh total and tenth consecutive FIFA World Cup appearance in Qatar, join us for a conversation with Steve Han about the history of soccer in Korea.

 

Korea & FIFA World Cup

Tuesday, November 22, 2022 | 5 PM (EST)

 

 

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

Join our membership program here!

email iconE-News sign-up

 

About the Speaker:

Steve Han is a journalist specializing in sports and entertainment. He is currently a chief editor for Korea at soccer editorial agency Ganassa, writing for FIFA+, Manchester City, and Borussia Dortmund. In addition to a 14-year career as a football writer at Goal between 2008 and March 2022, he has also freelanced for various publications, including FourFourTwo and Sports Chosun, and has appeared on BBC World News and Sky Sports.

New Narratives in Korea: Baek Sehee

Posted on by

 

Part memoir, part self-help book, and completely engrossing, I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee is a book that captures the edgy relationship many millennials and Gen Z-ers have with hopelessness, hunger, and the pressure to be perfect. A runaway bestseller in Korea where her readers include RM of BTS, I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is newly translated into English by International Booker Prize shortlisted translator Anton Hur.

Baek Sehee is a successful young social media director at a publishing house when she begins seeing a psychiatrist about her — what to call it? — depression? She feels persistently low, anxious, self-doubting, but also judgmental of others. She hides her feelings at work and with her friends, but she’s constantly spiraling, overthinking, and worrying. The effort is exhausting and overwhelming and keeps her from forming deep relationships. This can’t be normal. Is this normal? But if she’s so hopeless, why is she always craving her favorite street food: the hot, spicy rice cake, tteokbokki? Is this just what life is like?

Recording her dialogues with her psychiatrist over a twelve-week period and expanding on each session with her own reflective micro-essays, Baek Sehee gives voice to mental health challenges that are still taboo, especially in Korean culture, openly disentangling the feedback loops, knee-jerk reactions, and harmful behaviors that keep her locked in a cycle of self-rejection. I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is a powerful testament to acceptance with a youthful voice—a therapy memoir for the social media generation.

In this episode of New Narratives in Korea, Baek Sehee discusses her bestselling book, her success and the challenges of dealing with mental health.

 

New Narratives in Korea: Baek Sehee

Wednesday, November 9, 2022 | 5 PM (EST)

 

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

Join our membership program here!

email iconE-News sign-up

 

About the Speaker:

Born in 1990, Baek Sehee studied creative writing in college before working for five years at a publishing house. For ten years, she received psychiatric treatment for dysthymia (persistent mild depression), which became the subject of her essays, and then I Want to Die, but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki. Her favorite food is tteokbokki, and she lives with her rescue dog, Jaram.

Crossroads of Youth

Posted on by Yurim Oh

During the silent film era in Korea, movie screenings were accompanied by live music and narrators called Byeonsa. This special screening of Crossroads of Youth invites you to encounter the film just as Korean audiences did in 1934. The Korean Film Archive and director Kim Tae-yong have reimagined the traditional Byeonsa theatrical event, bringing together the film, live musicians, actors, and narration for a dynamic multimedia experience.

Thursday November 3, 2022 | 7 PM

Gerald W Lynch Theater
524 W 59th St, New York, NY 10019

Saturday November 5, 2022 | 7 PM

University of Pittsburgh
Alumni Hall, 7th Floor

 

 


 The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

Join our membership program here!

email iconE-News sign-up

 

 

A Conversation with Kim Tae-yong

Posted on by Yurim Oh

The Crossroads of Youth Byeonsa Performance US Tour will begin this November, bringing a byeonsa troupe from South Korea to the United States for a multi-city tour.

 

The Crossroads of Youth Byeonsa Performance US Tour will begin this November, bringing a byeonsa troupe from South Korea to the United States for a multi-city tour. The byeonsa troupe will present Crossroads of Youth – directed by Ahn Jong-hwa and released in 1934, Korea’s oldest surviving silent film. A screening of this film is presented with live storytelling, music, and acting in accompaniment. Reimagining and reconstructing the byeonsa culture, Korea’s unique film watching tradition from the Japanese occupation period, this event provides a full theater experience unlike any other.

This unique project was spearheaded by director Kim Tae-yong. A film director and screenwriter, Kim’s films include Memento Mori, Family Ties, and Late Autumn.

In this conversation, Kim discusses discovering and restoring the only surviving Korean silent film and the journey of bringing the old form of entertainment to contemporary audiences.

 

A Conversation with Kim Tae-yong

Wednesday, November 2, 2022 | 5 PM (EDT)

 

 


 The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

Join our membership program here!

email iconE-News sign-up

 

 

About the Speaker:

Kim Tae-yong is a South Korean film director and screenwriter. After his feature directorial debut Memento Mori (1999), he helmed the critically acclaimed Family Ties (2006), and the English-language remake Late Autumn (2010).

Artist Talk: Young Min Moon

Posted on by Yurim Oh

In his paintings Young Min Moon depicts Jesa, a Confucian ritual for commemoration of the deceased, which was one of the earliest memories he holds while growing up in the military regime of South Korea in the 1970s and 80s. Despite the gender politics now associated with the ritual today due to its patriarchal nature, Moon insists on exploring the legacy. For him, the ritual holds multiple layers of meanings: an occasion of silence utterly severed from the violent era of his childhood, a means of remembering the deceased, and a tradition that may be discontinued in the age of globalization.

Moon’s paintings are also a way of honoring women’s labor for the patriarchal tradition, and an invitation to the celebration of familial ties that are largely inaccessible for diasporic Koreans. In his solo exhibition at The Korea Society, Moon also complicates his relation to the legacy of Jesa by situating it in relation to Catholicism that impacted the Confucian tradition in Korea.

Moon, whose solo exhibition The Share for Those Who Remain is on view at The Korea Society Gallery September 15-December 9, 2022, talks about his career and work.

 

Artist Talk: Young Min Moon

Tuesday, October 25, 2022 | 5 PM (EDT)
Video release

 

@ The Korea Society 
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor, NYC

Gallery hours: (M-F) 10 AM – 4:30 PM by appointment

**Pre-registration is now required for all Korea Society events, and an ID is required for security.**

For more information, please contact info@koreasociety.org or call (212) 759-7525.

 

Join our membership program here!

email iconE-News sign-up

 

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Young Min Moon is an artist and critic whose work reflects his migration across cultures and his awareness of the hybrid nature of identities forged amid the complex historical and political relationships between Asia and North America. Moon has shown his art in many exhibitions in South Korea and North America, including Sansumunhwa, Art Space Pool, Kumho Museum of Art, Gyeonggi Museum of Art, Kukje Gallery, Smith College Museum of Art, and the Carpenter Center at Harvard University, among others. Moon published his essays on contemporary Korean art in a wide range of publications, including Contemporary Art in Asia: A Critical Reader (MIT), and a chapter in A Companion to Korean Art (Wiley). He serves on the editorial board for the online journal Trans Asia Photography. Moon is a professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst and a recipient of Guggenheim Fellowship and Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant.

KPOP THE BROADWAY MUSICAL

Posted on by Yurim Oh

 

As global superstars put everything on the line for a special one-night-only concert, they face struggles both cultural and personal that threaten to dismantle one of the industry’s hottest labels. Featuring a cast of K-pop and musical theater stars, with 18 Broadway debuts, KPOP is a multimedia experience that explores the relentless discipline, raw talent, and commercial ambition behind the international sensation.

KPOP has the distinction of being the first musical on Broadway celebrating Korean culture and it is the third Broadway musical that highlights API heritage with API representation in the cast and creative team.

Join us for a conversation with the creative team behind the scene and cast members as they prepare to make their Broadway debut.

 

KPOP
THE BROADWAY MUSICAL
INSPIRED BY THEGLOBAL MUSIC PHENOMENON
Hybrid Program

Monday, October 24, 2022 | 6 PM (EDT)


The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

Join our membership program here!

email iconE-News sign-up

 

 

About the Speakers:

HELEN PARK (Music & Lyrics, Music Production & Arrangements) is best known for her work as composer-lyricist and music producer for the upcoming Broadway musical, KPOP, for which she is a three-time Drama Desk nominee and recipient of a Lucille Lortel Award and Richard Rodgers Award. Additionally, Park co-wrote songs for the Oscar-nominated Netflix animated musical film Over the Moon, directed by Academy Award-winning animator Glen Keane. She holds an MFA from NYU’s Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program and is an alumnus of the advanced BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop.
 

BOHYUNG (Tiny) is proud to be making her Broadway debut in KPOP. She is a veteran K-Pop star, debuting as a member of SPICA as well as performing as a solo artist. She has performed at KCON LA, KCON Abu Dhabi, Rainbow Festival, Immortal Songs, King of Mask Singer, amongst others. @bohyungkim
 

KEVIN WOO (Jun Hyuk) is honored to make his Broadway debut in KPOP. As a successful Korean-American singer-songwriter and former member of K-pop boy band U-KISS, he dedicates this to his South Korean heritage. @kevinwoo_official

 

Bojagi Workshop

Posted on by admin

Learn how to make your own bojagi—traditional Korean wrapping cloths—in this hands-on workshop. Participants will learn how to create a mini double layer bojagi called gub-bo using various colorful Korean ramie and hemp fabric and hand sewing techniques. Your own unique mini bojagi with geometric patterns can either be displayed as art in a frame or used as a decorative household item.  

Most materials—Korean ramie fabric, colored thread, needle, pins, marker, pencil, eraser, rulers—will be provided. Bring your own pin cushion if you would like.

 

 

About the Artist:

Wonju Seo was born and raised in Seoul Korea, where she received her B.F.A in Fine Arts Painting from Hong-Ik University in 1988. After graduating college, she has worked as a package designer and silk painting artist for a long time. In 1998, she came to the United State to continue her career as an artist.

Seo has taught at The Korea Society, the Lee Young Hee Museum of Korean Culture in New York City, the Charles B. Wang Center in Stony Brook, New York and Newark Museum in New Jersey. Her art works have been selected by juries for many arts competitions, and she has been nationally and internationally exhibited in galleries and museumss.

Seo’s works are in the permanent collections of the Newark Museum, NJ; Charles B. Wang Center, Stony Brook University, NY; and Grand Hyatt Hotel, Jeju Dream Tower, Jeju Island, South Korea.