1900s

“Gaga for Gangnam: $20 Million Bet on Bringing Korean Pop Culture to China”

by Lilian Lin via “The Independent“

Korean pop with Chinese characteristics? As the Korean pop culture craze in China continues to grow, some companies are betting heavily on the Middle Kingdom’s appetite for more Gangnam Style-style entertainment.

Hong Kong’s Media Asia and Taiwan’s Fubon Group recently teamed up with South Korea’s SM Entertainment, the country’s music and artist management giant, to set up an investment fund with $20 million in seed money to support various film &TV projects, focusing on China and global Chinese-language audiences.

SM, which manages a slate of top-tier Korean artists, including Girls’ Generation — a popular Korean girl band that won big at the YouTube Music Awards last year – says China is its most important market. According to the agreement, MediaAsia will also begin representing three artists currently backed by S.M Entertainment, including the Korean boy band EXO – a currently 11-member group that has three Chinese members and battled Justin Bieber and One Direction for Worldwide Act at MTV European Music Award last year.

The deal comes after Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit earlier this year to Seoul, when the two countries signed a string of deals to accelerate cultural exchanges, including an agreement to allow China-Korea co-production films to be seen as domestic films, allowing them to bypass strict imported film quotas in China’s theaters.

“Korean and Chinese government are looking forward to accelerating culture exchanges,” said Han Se-min, CEO of S.M Culture & Contents. “It definitely facilitates our cooperation.”

China’s obsession with all things Korean spans, of course, Psy’s smash hit Gangnam style, which remains beloved by China’s middle-age women who love to dance in public parks, as well as toddlers encouraged to dance in kindergarten classrooms.

This year’s K-pop craze in China, though, has been given further fuel by the rom-com Korean TV series “My Love From the Star.”

The smash hit TV series not only sparked a new fondness in China for fried chicken and beer – a dish often eaten by characters on the show – it also turned Kim Soo-hyun, a fresh-faced Korean heartthrob best known for playing the show’s ageless alien character, into a most-wanted star for China’s advertisers. Ads featuring his image touting everything from mineral water to shoes to moon cakes are ubiquitous in China. The show has been watched more than 14.5 billion times since last December’s debut. . . . .

Cubans Petition UN to Make Rumba Part of World’s Cultural Heritage

“Cubans Petition UN to Make Rumba Part of World’s Cultural Heritage”

by Michael Voss via CCTV

“People in Havana are working to preserve the older style of the Latin classic dance Rumba as a part of the world’s cultural heritage.

At this year’s week-long annual Timbalaye Rumba Festival in Havana, the organizers are petitioning the United Nations to have the music and dance form recognized as part of the world’s cultural heritage.

The festival also includes music classes and dance workshops. The roots of Rumba go back to the era of slavery, remain an integral part of Santeria, the Afro religion which is still widely practiced on the island.

Music and dance are an integral part of life in Cuba, and the Rumba is a core part of that. . . .”

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The Ruth E. Aten World Doll Collection: Americas

via “Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology”

Caribbean

*Caribb1. Nassau, Bahamas. Junkanoo Doll.* 9 ½ “Junkanoo is a carnival-like parade that takes place in the Bahamas on December 26th and January 1st annually. The parade grew out of celebrations held by African slaves at Christmas time. Today, groups of paraders known as Junkanooers compete against each other for cash prizes. Groups range in size from 10 to 1000 people. All group members wear elaborate costumes made from strips of colorful crepe paper pasted onto cardboard that has been shaped into a variety of forms. Junkanoo is accompanied by music performed on traditional Junkanoo instruments such as cowbells, foghorns, whistles, conch shells and goatskin Goombay drums, as well as “modern” wind instruments such as trumpets, trombones and tubas.Given by Nina Wood (student). Nina was from Nassau and arranged for a personal tour guide on one our trips to Nassau. My husband, Bob, and I actually got a chance to see a parade. 1996
*Caribb2. St Thomas, Bahamas. Bahamas Girl.* 2’ Stuffed cloth dolls with long legs, yarn hair with scarf, polka dotted top and flowered skirt. Given by Ruth Aten. 1995
Caribb3. Matanzas, Cuba. Black Cuban Doll. 10” Stuffed black cloth doll with pearl earrings, blue and white plaid head wrap and dress with yellow rickrack trim and blue ruffles. Given by John McDowell (faculty). 2000
*Caribb4. Nassau, Bahamas. Straw Doll.* 16” Woven straw doll with orange straw pom-poms on hat, dress and shoes. Doll was purchase in Nassau at the Straw Market. It was a popular souvenir doll. The famous Nassau Straw Market burned down shortly after this doll was purchased. Given by Ruth Aten from a trip to Nassau. 1995
*Caribb5. St. Maarten, Bahamas. Bahamas Lady.* 12” Painted wood ball head on dowel frame with wood bead arms and stuffed body. Doll dressed to depict current fashion in St. Maarten with flowered print skirt and head wrap. Given by Ruth Aten from a trip to St. Maarten. 1995

Inside the Paris Apartment Untouched for 70 Years

by Leon Watson via “Mail Online)

Caked in dust and full of turn-of-the century treasures, this Paris apartment is like going back in time.

Having lain untouched for seven decades the abandoned home was discovered three years ago after its owner died aged 91.

The woman who owned the flat, a Mrs De Florian, had fled for the south of France before the outbreak of the Second World War.

She never returned and in the 70 years since, it looks like no-one had set foot inside.

Back in time: The flat near the Trinité church in Paris between the Pigalle red light district and Opera

The property was found near a church in the French capital’s 9th arrondissement, between Pigalle red light district and Opera. Experts were tasked with drawing up an inventory of her possessions which included a painting by the 19th century Italian artist Giovanni Boldini.

One expert said it was like stumbling into the castle of Sleeping Beauty, where time had stood still since 1900. ‘There was a smell of old dust,’ said Olivier Choppin-Janvry, who made the discovery.

But he said his heart missed a beat when he caught sight of a stunning tableau of a woman in a pink muslin evening dress.

The painting was by Boldini and the subject a beautiful Frenchwoman who turned out to be the artist’s former muse and Mrs de Florian’s grandmother, Marthe de Florian, a beautiful French actress and socialite of the Belle Époque.

Under a thick layer of dusk lay a treasure trove of turn-of-the-century objects including a painting by the 19th century Italian artist Giovanni Boldini

Untouched: The cobweb-filled flat was discovered in the 9th arrondissement of Paris

Treasure trove: Behind the door, under a thick layer of dusk lay a treasure trove of turn-of-the-century objects, including the Boldini painting that sold for £1.78million. . . .

The Islamic State and the Cultural Destruction of Iraq

by Hadani Ditmars via “Middle East Eye“

Iraq’s monuments have borne witness to and shared the hardships of the country’s long-suffering people

The latest in the surrealist horror show that the nightly news on Iraq has become offers a rich narrative – at least for a writer working on a political travelogue of ancient sites. Once again, the Mongol hordes are at the gates.

After destroying statues of a poet and a musician in Mosul, Islamic State (IS) now threatens to destroy the 2nd-century BC city of Hatra, and UNESCO has sounded the alarm about one of their world heritage sites at risk.

The Director-General of Unesco, Irina Bokova, said earlier this week, “I call on all actors to refrain from any form of destruction of cultural heritage, including religious sites. Their intentional destruction are war crimes and a blow against the Iraqi people’s identity and history.”

In one of many ironies, this well preserved example of a Parthian city that has survived centuries of imperial intrigue and invasions may fall victim to a group of angry- yet well organized and funded- young men, drunk on brutality, wired on ideology run amok, galvanized by decades of war and injustice

Hatra has more recently served as a film set for the 1973 production of the Exorcist, in which a priest discovers a talisman belonging to an ancient demon and brings it back to the US, where it possesses a young American girl.

While it’s not difficult to ascertain that the disastrous invasion of 2003 has unleashed more than it’s fair share of vindictive spirits of which IS is only one- Iraq’s ancient sites- as its people- have been long-suffering.

Iraq’s monuments bear witness to and share in the hardships of her people. After years of war and occupation, historic sites have been badly damaged and neglected. While the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddhas of Bamyan in Afghanistan was universally condemned, outrage about the destruction of Iraqi and indeed world heritage (not to mention the fate of Iraq’s people) has been somewhat restrained.

As Muwafaq al Taei – who was an architect under Saddam but an unrepentant communist who was simultaneously lionized and spied upon by the ancien regime and then almost killed by US troops after the invasion – (and my erstwhile travel companion on my journey to Iraq’s ancient sites) always says, ‘you have to understand the past to make sense of the present.’

I was inspired to write my next book Ancient Heart when Muafaq took me on a tour of sacred sites in Baghdad, in the midst of sectarian war zones, garbage dumps and displaced people’s camps. It reminded me of the last scene in Planet of the Apes, when Charlton Heston sees the Statue of Liberty half-submerged on the beach.

As I write this I am looking at a map of ancient sites in Iraq. Most maps of Iraq in the popular imagination are divided into three neat sectarian sections, or filled with bullet point punctuations on the evening news.

I am convinced of the power of this map. If applied correctly, it may just transform people’s consciousness. I want people to see Iraq for what it is- whether American generals or IS commanders – to recognize the depth and soul of the land they invaded, not just as another terrorized place to be abandoned but as part of our world heritage.

My map shows Ur, the birthplace of the Prophet Abraham and the home of the Sumerian ziggurat. Saddam stationed a military base nearby, as did the invading Americans who added a strategically placed Burger King. It was once a temple to the moon god Nanna, and many moons later, its adjoining town of Nasiriyah site of the Shiah uprising, encouraged by George Bush Senior and then brutally repressed by the regime, while the US stood by.

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