Stephanie Trinidad

Breakout Stars Korean Artist, K-Pop, and the American Music Industry          The emergence of Korean culture in the United States isn’t something that is new. For years artist from South Korea have slowly become a part of American culture, such as Rain a K-Pop and R&B artist who starred in the movie Ninja Assassin and was named one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People Who Shape Our World.” Bryan Walsh wrote in the 2006 article on Rain that, “ Rain is the face — and well-muscled torso — of pop globalism” (time.com). Although Rain didn’t debut with an English language album he was able to establish himself in the United States and bring over the Hallyu Wave to the Western World. In Choe Sang-Hun and Mark Russell’s article “Bringing K-Pop to the West” they describe what K-Pop means “ K-pop is part of a broader trend known as the Korean Wave and called ''hallyu'' in Korean. The Taiwanese were among the first to notic...

            When people think about Asian popular culture the term Hallyu Wave comes to mind for many people who live within East Asia. The origin of the term is highly debated as many scholars don’t know where or how the term came to be. The overall definition is that it is a wave of popular culture that has over taken East-Asia encompassing a variety of different forms of entertainment. Yet the success of Hallyu stars both within the reaches of East Asia and overall globally has yet to be truly determined. Jeongmee Kim’s article “Why Does Hallyu Matter? The Significance of the Korean Wave in South Korea” determines that the overall success should be attributed to Korean dramas and how the people from neighboring countries are attracted to the conservative nature of the shows. While Solee I. Shin and Lanu Kim’s article “Organizing K-Pop: Emergence and Market Making of Large Korean Entertainment Houses, 1980-2010” states th...

            The early 20 th century brought about a change in the perception of women both in their public and private lives. Throughout the world women were going from being the homemaker to becoming a working class modern woman. This change also happened in Japan were the term moga was created to describe the modern girl that was starting to appear throughout the country. The novel Naomi by Junichiro Tanizaki describes the evolution of the modern girl through the eyes of the story’s main protagonist Joji who finds himself enthralled with the concept of western culture and the modern girl. Through Joji the reader meets Naomi who looks western in appearance but is Japanese born. The novel starts when Joji meets Naomi who is 15 at the time and from there he attempts to make her a well-rounded young woman who is cultured and educated. Joji learns though his experiences with Naomi how truly the frightening the modern Japanes...

            At the beginning of the 18 th century in Japan when the politics of the country were shifting towards a more peaceful time there was one event that would be spoken about throughout the country for years to come. The story of the 47 Ronin who went to avenge their disgraced leader Lord Asano. Lord Asano was asked to entertain Lord Kira who was an imperial emissary visiting from Kyoto. The story of what truly happened during their encounter isn’t clear all that is truly known is that Lord Asano was outraged at Lord Kira and drew his sword and cut Kira who wasn’t able to draw his sword in time to defend himself. Lord Asano was sentenced to commit seppuku for his actions against Lord Kira as well as his crime against the shogunate by attacking someone who worked for the Shogun. Thus prompting the 47 now masterless samurai to avenge Lord Asano and take the life of the person who had caused their master’s land and domai...

            The written word has always been a means of communication whether it’s written in novels, letters, diaries, or even writing a post on Facebook. During the 10 th century C.E. the written language in Japan took on a different form entirely that would still be relevant during the Modern Era. The Heian Period in Japan spanned nearly four centuries would spawn two of the most known books in literature and would show how life inside the Japanese imperial court was like. Two of the most well-known books of the time were written by women who lived within the Japanese court. Wealthy Women during this time in Japanese history were well educated and often worked within the imperial court as ladies in waiting serving the imperial family. One very surprising aspect of this time in Japanese history is that some women were as educated as men, and men weren’t given preference when it came to higher education. The Kana wri...