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5 Things I LOVED in Kpop This Week:10/31 – 11/6

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Written by On November 7, 2011

It’s been a fast turn around for this edition of 5 Things I LOVED in Kpop This Week as we move to a new day.  Every Monday, I’ll be sharing with you the 5 events in K-pop from the past week that I thought was just a bit more special than the rest.  Last week, the Wonder Girls teased us in more ways than one, Jaejoong showed us his home, BEAST and the K-pop Roadshow hit Spain, INFINITE‘s Woo-hyun made his last appearance on Immortal Song 2, the men of Infinite Challenge got taken down in a game of knowledge by a little girl, and after the 2011 MTV EMAs yesterday… there was a paradigm shift in the Kpopiverse.


 
5. A sneak peek into Jaejoong’s home

In a photo shoot for Maison Korea, JYJ‘s Jaejoong shared with fans some intimate scenes from the interior of his home.  He had a hand in designing his new luxury penthouse digs in which different areas had different decorating themes to fit their function for Jaejoong like the room he composes music in, his fashionable yet comfy living room, and his stylish and functional kitchen (he did show some cooking skills in Protect the Boss).  The home is a solace for the busy and hard working hallyu star.  The photo spread revealing Jaejoong’s home will be available in the November issue of Maison Korea.  Loving this doesn’t make me a long distance stalker does it?
 
 
4. Jae-suk bumps & grinds on Running Man
Actors and former Family Outing members Kim Su-ro and Park Ye-jin were guests on the last episode of Running Man.  In their first mission, the guests had to find the cast members via GPS and then pick and choose who they wanted to be on their team.  Of course Ye-jin will always be the ‘sweet and savage lady’ and gave Yoo Jae-suk a hard time when she found him first.  And what does Yoo Jae-suk do to win her favor?  Just a little bump and grind, how could you not love Yoo Jae-suk?

 
3. Dong-jun on the cover of Men’s Health Korea

 

 

ZE:A‘s maknae Kim Dong-jun got the honor of being the youngest person to appear on the cover of Men’s Health Korea and I can see why.  Keeping fit has been something Dong-jun has been doing for a while as he actively participated in sports and competed in gymnastics and soccer in high school.  He has kept fit after his debut with the group’s practice regimen, working out with weights, and CrossFit training.  Need I really say why I loved this?  The boy is a lean, mean, K-pop idol machine.

 

 
 
2. Flower Boys & Ramyun…

It’s M’m! M’m! Good!  So, it’s been a little while since I’ve watched a K-drama because nothing really piqued my interest again until now.  Jung Il-woo is the lead character, a spoiled young chaebol returning from the states named Cha Chi-soo.  He is both mature from living abroad and childishly spoiled by his father, sophisticated yet rude, knowledgeable about how to woo a woman yet ignorant of how to satisfy one, and all around cheeky. Jung Il-woo plays him delightfully and if lead actress Lee Chung-ah hopes to keep up as the bumbling Yang Eun-bi, she’ll have to step up her game.  To be fair, the story is just unraveling and by the end of episode two we find that Eun-bi is more than she seemed at first.  It will be interesting to see how the story unfolds with its concept of ‘cool dating’ versus old school romance and… how 25 year old Eun-bi will stay out of jail if her leading man is a 19 year old high school student.  Flower Boy Ramyun Shop is a Monday/Tuesday drama on tvN.
 
 
 
1.  Big Bang WINS at the EMAs
 

 And if you didn’t see this one coming it must be the first time you’ve read 5 Things.  Big Bang won the inaugural MTV EMA award for Worldwide Act yesterday in Belfast, Ireland.  It was a much needed positive boost for the group who is still recovering from the after affects of scandal.  VIPs showed up in force to vote and individuals from other fandoms joined the effort because they recognized that the win wouldn’t only be beneficial to Big Bang, it would be beneficial to all of K-pop because of the Worldwide exposure it brought.  Their combined efforts literally rocked the vote and took the EMAs by storm with a K-pop win over Britney Spears, which those who don’t know K-pop could never have imagined.  There were tears, there was united K-pop pride, but in the end to fans of the group all that mattered were the five young men united again on stage… smiling.

Those were the top 5 Things I LOVED in K-pop last week, were they yours?

And I’d just like to say that I really enjoy watching the K-pop Roadshow Dance Cover Festival shows–it’s great seeing fans from all over the world sharing their love of K-pop. Even though I really like the shows, I’m not always able to fit them in 5 Things which is why I’ve started adding links to some of the Things that didn’t quite make it, but I think you should definitely still check out if you haven’t already. The previews of next week’s show with 2PM looks phenomenal.

(TheKoreaEconomicDaily, MaisonKorea, Newsen, SeoulDail, wearevipsubs)

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  • Anonymous

    <3 Jaejoong <3

    I've never seen a maknae look that sexy. They're usually cute and fluffy. I like this development.

    About the EMAs, I'm happy for Big Bang but I'm also really irritated as well. Not at Big Bang or the fact that they won, but Kpop fans. Before their win, there wasn't any interest in Big Bang from many Kpop fans that I have seen online. They gave the group the cold-shoulder in favor of other groups like SNSD, SuJu, and SHINee. Then, Big Bang wins the award (courtesy of VIPs, I'm sure, but rightfully so), and suddenally every Kpop fan in the world loves Big Bang. I was hoping Big Bang would win because 1) I never really cared for Britney's music, and 2) the group needed this sort of win to get back on their feet. But what's really ticking me off is VIPs' and other Kpop fans' immature behavior. All over, I keep seeing Kpop fans bash Britney for no really good reason. Maybe some of Britney's fans are butthurt, I get that, but I'm not seeing it. As far as I can tell, everyone's been like, "Good for that Asian group!" (The people that aren't familiar with Kpop and Big Bang, that is). All I'm seeing is Kpop fans rubbing Big Bang's win in everyone's faces, especially Britney's, and going on about how Big Bang is so superior to Britney. Bitch, please. I don't care for Britney's music and maybe I do consider Big Bang more talented, but Britney is a superstar for a reason. It can't be denied that she has 10x the star power Big Bang does, so VIPs and Kpop fans need to get off their high horses and stfu. 

    END RANT. Sorry, I needed to get that out of my system! Has anyone else noticed this behavior? I think it's pretty typical Kpop fan behavior but it's still annoying. 

    • SED606

      I’ve seen the exact opposite of what you describe.  I’ve seen a few VIPs slam Britney, but most either don’t mention her at all or seem to mention her more matter of factly — kinda like “wow, it’s amazing Big Bang was able to beat someone as big as Britney Spears.” It’s not a slam, just an observation.  On the other hand, I’ve seen a lot more whining from Britney fans — not all, of  course, just more.  The difference is probably that we are following different people and getting information from different sources.

      In the end, I think we just need to remember we don’t actually see what everyone is saying and there will always be a mix of people who are being annoying and others being reasonable.  In the end, it’s nothing to really get worked up about.

      • Anonymous

        Really? That does make sense. Britney’s fans tend to be a little overly sensative as well. It’s probably on both sides. On Tumblr, I’ve been seeing obnoxious posts slamming Britney with hundreds of notes, but VIPs have been complaining about rude Brit fans on YouTube. My dash was spammed with boastful posts from VIPs and it was just ugh. Couldn’t scroll without seeing another “in your face!” post. This entire fight is silly. It’ll probably be forgotten by next week or earlier.

        Britney’s reaction to Big Bang’s win was funny. She had this “Wtf?” expression and it looked like she was mouthing “whoa-whoa-whoa.” To be fair, if I was Britney freaking Spears, I’d also be surprised that I didn’t win. She probably went to the EMAs thinking it’d be cake.

        • SED606

          What reaction?  Britney wasn’t even at the EMAs that night.

          • Anonymous

            I saw a gif of her at the EMAs. I’ll go find it…

            Found it: http://mocolatte31.tumblr.com/post/12478211888/winrisu-flamingho-bonthedarkphoenix

            It looks like she was there, but I didn’t actually watch the EMAs so I don’t know for sure. This could also be just a rumor and from a different event. Nothing on Tumblr is really legit.

          • Revy

            That wasn’t from the EMA’s. She didn’t go. I think that gif is from somewhere else

          • http://twitter.com/sere_kawaii C’est la Vie

            she wasnt even there.

    • Anonymous

      Eh… I think there are a lot of casual Big Bang supporters (non-VIPs) that generally lie low and can appreciate the boys without trying to evangelize others at every opportunity. The boys have also been in the industry long enough to have made a significant cultural impact (and a couple of canon hit songs like ‘Lie’), so I’m sure there are plenty of people who overall like and support them, even if they are not obsessive over it. I don’t see that as anything to be mad about. What, are the only people allowed to be happy for Big Bang the ones that are vocal about them all the time? Also, the boys themselves have been lying relatively low recently (what with all the scandals) so there really wasn’t that much reason to be talking about Big Bang when say, SNSD or Suju’s comeback was going on.

      And yeah, about the Britney thing, fans are going to be immature, you can’t really change that.

    • Issy

      I’ve been watching it for the last two weeks and the nasty comments are coming from both sides.  There are always a few of the vocal minority that use things like this to be nasty.  It’s not just KPop fans that behave this way. 

      There’s a poll with the singer of a band I work for right now that took a bad turn to the point I had to ask our fans (Europeans and North Americans) to stop harassing the editor of the magazine over it. 

      There’s always bad apples in every bunch.  

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LL4QDJLVFDT2RDIZYBALSE75JE angel29

      About the Britney rants, don’t worry.  Her fans are so used to it since her debut.  From Christina Aguilera’s fans all the way to Justin Bieber’s (though that has me thinking), they’ve dished those way harder on Britney.  Not defending anyone but it’s not really news. LOL

      Anyway, yeah, I also hate the idea of “rubbing it in.”  But there will always be immature fans out there from every fangroup.  What do we do with them?  Annihilation would be nice! Kidding. :)

    • Anon

      i honestly think the britney fans are being worse about it. she got shutout in both the categories she was nominated in and though she didn’t have much of a chance in the other, the worldwide act was hers to lose. it doesn’t help that a lot of international media has focussed on her loss in this category. yes, there have been bitchy, cocky vips but there have also been bitchy, cocky britney stans, especially in the last week before the awards. and while most vips have spent the last 2 days celebrating the win and the fact that the boys are together and smiling, most brit stans have focused on bashing bigbang and they’re still at it.

  • http://twitter.com/PhanTheHotness Jenny

    flower boy ramyun shop is AMAZING! loving the acting by jung il woo and he really carries the show

  • SED606

    I like that you add links to other things you think are cool, but can’t cover.  I’m gonna go check out Kpop Road Show now!

  • thunderandsmoke

    I need to dive back into Korean dramas: Flower Boy Ramyun Shop has peeked my interests. 

    I’ve also been watching some fancams of Big Bang’s EMA travels, and Taeyang seems like one of the nicest guys ever. The whole time he’s been waving to the fans, handing out autographs left and right, and taking pictures with people: I love that dude.

  • Anonymous

    “ but in the end to fans of the group all that mattered were the five young men united again on stage… smiling.”

    Amen.

  • Anon

    i honestly dgaf about who bigbang beat to win the category or what kind of awards show it was, i only care about the fact that they won and that means we got to see them as five and we got to see them genuinely happy and smile. it’s hopefully the start of their rehabilitation in the korean press and blogosphere and a sign of better things to come. it means much less for kpop than it does for them as a group and that’s why vips are emotional about it.

  • http://twitter.com/flickaddi Felicia Addison

    i dont think i’ve every fangirled about Kpop as much as i did watching the EMAs even before they won and i just spotted them in the background i would pause the TV and squeal “THERES TOP” and when they did win i jumped of the couch like a crazy lady. And Zico was there with MTV korea so I also did some spazzing while reading fan accounts of fans that met him in Belfast

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