Reunion, a traumatizing movie and that awkward moment when one of your favourite songs makes you laugh

Yesterday I met my beloved roommates from Tokyo, Alex and Mio, in Frankfurt. We drank bubbletea, talked about good old times (crazy nights out, the dorkiness in our apartment etc..) and had Tsukemen in an nice Japanese restaurant for dinner.

Tsukemen is a Japanese noodledish. The broth is served seperatly and you dip the noodles into it. This picture was taken by Aimi

It was extremely delicious and I had an awesome time like always! Thank you girls!


On friday I watched the Greek movie "Dogtooth" with a friend. The description sounded kind of interesting and a little freaky.... but the movie turned out to be much more shocking than we expected. I've seen a lot of strange movies, because strange movies come in a package with love for Asian cinema...but this surpassed everything I've seen so far. The idea of the movie is awesome. Three siblings are brought up by their parents being isolated from the outside world. They use the most ridiculous tricks to keep the truth from their children and protect the facade they've built over the years. As a result, the three kids (or better: young adults), two girls and a boy, have developed a lot of abnormal behaviour patterns. I'm not saying it'a bad movie, but it's really shocking, full of perversion and some scences might be hard to handle for some people. I don't really recommend to watch this movie...but some of you will probably think about it now. Actually, when people tell me how shocking they found a movie, I'm kind of tempted to watch it. When a friend of mine told me about the shocking scences in Lars von Triers "Antichrist", I really wanted to watch it...and I did xD

Random change of topic: The Japanese version of SHINee's Lucifer was released recently. I was really crazy about the Korean version in 2010. Before I wasn't really thaaaat much of a SHINee Fan, but after the Lucifer Album I went asdfhsakjdfue for them.
So far all of the Japanese PVs SHINee released were remakes of their successful Korean songs. I liked the Japanese versions so far, and was even content with the new one of my beloved song "Juliette". The MVs were really well done, too... but there's one thing I just can't stand about them: Taemin gets like double as much screen time as the other members. It's not that I dislike him... but I think it's a little exaggerated, sorry. The other members are equally talented, but have been kind of pushed in the background. Even some lines Jong or Onew (the members with the best vocals) sang before were transferred to him. That's just wrong somehow.... Besides I cracked up 10 seconds or so after I started watching the  Lucifer pv, because somehow the Japanese lyrics sounded really strange to me at first. Don't know why. After replaying the vid a few times I'm okay with them x)


At the end of this post I want something that eat your kimchi's Martina wrote in their latest post (If you don't know eat your kimchi you should check out their blog and videos!). She's saying what I've been trying to say about Kpop and other music many times before, but in contrast to me she doesn't fail at it:

"We’ve taken a lot of flack from people who live in Korea and HATE kpop. They feel like they can only support everything which is Indie, and any support of a mainstream band is some kind of devil worship. We firmly disagree with this perspective and the snobby attitude towards kpop and anything mainstream. We, too, listen to many crazy Indie bands that are loved by a small groups of elite fans (do we announce that fact as if it’s some proud badge to be worn? No) but we also really love and respect kpop.

How can we come to grips with these two extreme positions regarding music and culture? To us, it’s the talent and passion of the members of the band that matter. Not everyone in the world can play an instrument, or sing, or dance, or write music. If you grow up playing the guitar and you form a rock band in your garage and fail for 10 years and make it in the 11th, we’re happy for you, but does that mean a kpop idol who trained to sing and dance for 10 years is any different? Yes, they have a label supporting them with money to get their names out there, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that kpop idols ARE talented. Opera singers don’t write their own music and are usually discovered only after appearing in many musicals backed by companies, but does that mean they’re not talented because they weren’t found singing Opera in a tiny university bar? Absolutely not. The same goes for many talented singers throughout the decades (even Elvis Presley).

The point of this long rant is that even though we can acknowledge that BEG and other kpop groups have big wig companies backing them, I’m tired of people immediately writing off kpop (and pop in general) because of that fact. I think the deepest irony in this whole situation is the very musician wants to be in the position of popularity that kpop bands have, but once they reach it (by their own means or via a record label) many fans will desert them, saying that they “sold out”. What you want to say is, “I’m jealous my special band no one knew is now know by many people. I’m sad they’re making money and supporting themselves.”

So true!