Korean Fashion --- From entertainment to clothes

By Eos Lan

Like Japan, Korea is also know for its latest and fashion designs, which leads trends in many Asian countries. Many Asian people are first informed of Korean fashion by watching Korean pop show, which people begin to intimate fashion styles of some of Korean popular idols and super stars. The power made by Korean pop stars has been spread worldwide, which makes Korean fashion more and more famous throughout the world.

(picture from http://allkoreanentertainment.blogspot.com/p/korean-fashion.html)

        Korean youth will even follow the current heated Korean drama to dress up themselves. The entertainment industry is well developed, which it has millions of people working in the field to help make it better.  Many Korean stars, like Girls’ Generation, Big Bang and etc., all have their own fans and influences in West. More and more people know about Korean and its pop stars. Korean music, TV shows, movies and dramas all reflect the current Korean fashion and trends, which also have great impacts on many people interested in Korean fashion. Korean-style clothes come to one of symbols in world fashion.

(Picture from http://www.korean-fashion-online.com/korean_street_

Food in Southeast Asia ---- Thai Food

By Eos Lan

Food in Southeast Asia is very different from other types of food in rest of Asian region. Southeast-Asia food is famous of its unique taste, which is a perfect mixture with spicy and sour. Usually, Southeast-Asia food is colorful, indicating the breath of tropical feeling. One of typical Southeast-Asia countries is Thailand. And we will choose its famous dishes to introduce.

Thai food widely uses various kinds of seasonings and curry. Cultures of Thai food are influences both by Eastern and Western cultures. Tastes of Thai food could be different depended on chefs, consumers and even cooking places. Consumers have great freedom to make their Thai food more fitted with their own eating habits, for example mild or spicy.
Thai food is famous for its balance of three fundamental taste senses in each dish or the overall meal: sour, sweet and spicy.  Thai meals typically contain either a single dish or rice with many complementary dishes and shared by all. It is customary and respectful to serve more dishes than the actual number of guests at a table. Food materials are all mainly used fresh agricultural products. Thai seasonings are unique and more flavorful, such as lemongrass, galangal, lemon, red onion, small chili. Famous Thai dishes are papaya salad, Thai shrimp soup (also known as Tom Yum Kung), green curry coconut chicken, crispy rice noodles, Thai fish cake, pork satay and so on.
(Pictures are found in Google image.)

Wafuku (わふく) ---- Traditional Japanese clothing

By Eos Lan

Different from Qipao, one of the traditional Chinese clothing, Wafuku still has been widely used in Japanese’ daily life. In many festivals, Japanese people will dress up with Wafuku, which usually a family will make one Wafuku in good quality as family symbol to pass on the next generation. Wafuku has various functions with different designs, which are used in distinctive situations.

Wafuku used to be called gofuku (ごふく) before the late 19th century. The name of wafuku began officially used after the Meiji Restoration (one of the most influential revolution in Japan, making Japan have a great improvement over that time).

(Traditional and formal wafuku, picture from http://jp.jiahewh.com/content/ribenchuantongwenhua/2010-01/114281.shtml)

Designs of wafuku among men and women have significant differences. Men’s wafuku prefers using simple colors, usually black, which also has fewer designs compared to women’s wafuku and focuses on comfort and convenience. However, women’s wafuku is colorful and with many accessories. Depending on different occasions, Japanese people will choose different wafuku, showing respects. For example, the wafuku wearing in weeding, formal balls, banquet or ceremony and so on differ a lot.

(wafuku worn with different positions in palace, picture from http://jp.jiahewh.com/content/ribenchuantongwenhua/2010-01/114281.shtml)

        Noways, many designers also start mixing some fashion ideas into traditional wafuku. They used more lighter cloth to made wafuku and add some details onto it, which shows how modern and classic perfectly match with each other. Also, many world-famous named-brand also choose some significant characteristic od wafuku made into fashion clothing.
(Picture from http://fashion.enorth.com.cn/system/2006/03/16/001256747.shtml)

Pick up your Make-up brushes!

by Ellie

        Japanese girls are well known for their excellent  make-up skills. Their persistent pursuits of beauty drive them to wake up one and a half or two hours earlier every morning to complete the skin care routine and most importantly, make-up. 

       First, let's talk about some differences between western style make-up and Asian style one. 

1. Whitening is essential of skin care for Asian.

This is because the skin tone of Asian is medium while that of U.S. is light. Furthermore, a primary criteria of Asian beauty is white! That's why most of ladies try their best to brighten their skin. So, please don't feel weird if you see an Asian lady holding an umbrella under a sunny day, lol. 

   

     2.  Asian needs to highlight contours of face

Unlike ladies from US, Asian usually have "flatter" face. Thus, they apply the sheer powder on nose, forehead, cheekbones, and chin to highlight their contours of faces to make them look more "3D". 

     3.  More complicated tools

Besides the basic cosmetics, there are three more things that are necessary to Asian daily make-up, but rarely used in US: 

• colored contact lenses-make eyes look bigger
• eyelid patch-for those who have single eyelid and want their eyes look bigger
• false lashes (some may apply several layers of false lashes!)-make eyes look bigger as well

        Since make-up is so crucial, every fashion magazine will contain a make-up section that shows the steps of make-up and recommended cosmetics to finish those kinds of make-up. Hence, readers can follow the guides of the magazines to apply make-up and be confident when they go out.

        Now, let's look at some guides for different styles.

City look

sweet look

natural look 1,how to minimize pores

natural look 2, how to minimize pores

  Hope you enjoy this short introduction of the Japanese style make-up :)

Time to get rid of your hoodies and sweatpants! 

   -- follow the Japanese fashion trend

by Ellie

        It is said that Milan is the center of fashion in the Western countries, then Tokyo is the orientation of Estern fashion. Japanese style is well-rounded and It is not just about cuteness. And people in Japan pay lots of attention in dressing up every day. It seems that if you randomly pick a person on street, he or she will be capable to be your stylist, lol. It is tradition to spend an hour or two on make-up and matching clothes before they go out from home. Their strict criteria on beauty dates back to the Heian period (794-1185 A.D.), when men and women would do their make-up with white powder to make themselves look more beautiful and wear layers of clothes made from fine silk and decorated with delicate patterns (learned from the EALC class, haha).  It In short, nowadays Tokyo fashion plays an important role in East Asian fashion inspiration. In the following post, I will present the prediction of summer 2012 and some street snapshot photos that cover the main branches of Japanese style.

        

 Summer 2012 prediction

1. Flower patterns                                                         2.Stripe or dots

3. ice-cream like color 

4.lace again (lace seems a main strain of Japanese style in the last decade) 

        In order to keep track with the lastest fashion information, these are my top 3  Japanese magazines:

1.ViVi

2.CanCam

3. JJ

In addition, the Tokyo Girl catwalk show and ViVi Night are two of the most famous fashion shows in Japan. If you are interested in them, you can search on Youtube and enjoy the feast full of fashioned clothes and beauties! 

Finally, here 's the link that I usually browse for the street snapshot of Japan.  You can discover many "brave" people who are in unconventional style! 

http://www.japanesestreets.com/

If you want to know more about Japanese make-up and hair style, follow my blog :)

A seafood trip to Busan, Korea

By. Lucy

I’ve already heard that Busan is famous of its international movie festival and its seafood. Now, let me share my seafood trip to Busan in 2010. This is my favorite seafood restaurant Haizhu （海柱）on the coast line of Hae wun dae (Northeast side of Busan). It has a nice location facing the beach and sea and the best spot is on the second floor that you can taste the food while enjoying the view.

I was born and raised near the coast side; and I can clearly taste the fresh of the seafood which reminds me home. This is a picture I took. The seafood fired rice mixed with yellow pickled radish, caviar, dried sea moss and Korean salad is my favorite.
The grilled fish above is called Saengseon-gui. The Korean way of grilling it is to use the entire fish with simple seasonings such as salt, soy sauce, or hot pepper sauce.

Another dish I want to introduce is the stir-fried octopus (Nakji Bokkeum).
The octopus is cut into bite-sized pieces, served with carrots, onions, and green onions. This dish is cooked in a round-bottomed wok over a strong fire and mixed with rice and red pepper powder as the main seasonings.

This coastal region also has an amazing nightlife where the seafood and drinks are sold outside the restaurant. You can just get a bit on the side walk and enjoy the sea breeze.

The reputation of Chinese cuisine -- Peking duck

By. Xue Feng (Lucy)

Peking duck which represents the top cuisine in Beijing is often considered as one of Chinese national foods. For tourists, one of the most attractive things about Beijing is the delicious Peking duck.

The history of Peking duck dates back to 600 years ago which is in Ming Dynasty.

The two famous Peking Duck restaurants in Beijing are QuanJuDe 全聚德 (Complete Collection of Virtues) and BianYiFang 便宜坊 (Shop of Convenience and Pleasure), both having a history over 400 years. The original BianYiFang was in the Rice Market Hutong while the original QuanJuDe was in the Meat Market, both in the southern part of the city.

At QuanJuDe, the ducks are firstly immersed in condiments which are secret recipes to the restaurant and are roasted directly over flames stoked by wood from the fruit tree. The best roasted duck is date-red, shining with oil, but with a crisp skin and tender meat. The most interesting thing for me is that the chef cuts the meat into thin slices at table in front of the customers. Then the meat is served with Chinese onions and special Chinese sauce.

Another famous restaurant offering Peking duck -- BianYiFang (Cheap Restaurant), was opened in 1855, nine years earlier than QuanJuDe. At BianYiFang, roasting is done in an enclosed container fueled with crop stalks. One of the most impressive things of the duck in BianYiFang is that the cook put vegetables and edible flower in the duck in order to make more nutritious and tasty.

I still remember that day I tried two ducks from the above restaurants at Qianmen to compare which was better. Finally, each of them has a share. The duck outsider Giori tender and traditional cooking style in QuanJuDe and the fresh and delicious taste with high nutritional value in BianYiFang both impressed me. Next time, if you are going to Beijing, these two Peking duck restaurants are highly recommended.

Dim Sum - Core culture of Canton and Southern China

by Ellie

        If you have been to Chinatown before, you must have heard about "dim sum" or "yum cha", namely drinking tea.  Yum Cha or Dim Sum culture is essential to lives of residence especially in Guangzhou city, Hong Kong and Macau. 

        

        What is dim sum? It is the Cantonese style of bite size food,that people eat when they drink tea together with friends or family weekly or even daily, usually 3 to 4 pieces per serving. The cooking methods range from steam, bake, fry, boil,etc. Mostly, they taste either salty or sweet. Now, I would like share some photos I took when I "yum cha" with my friend in Chicago Chinatown.

Maybe the most famous dim sum is the shrimp dumplings.

chicken feet in special sauce
i know you may think chicken feet is strange or even disgusting,
but trust me, it's really delicious!

 pork porridge

you see, how exciting my ABC and Suzhou friend!  

rice crepe with deep fried Chinese donut

pan fried water chestnut cake

stir fried sticky rice

almond tea

almond ice-Mt bread

        Yum Cha is a cultural tradition that links people in Canton. That is, every weekend, holiday or family gathering events, people like to spend a hour or two in chatting with each other while they are eating diverse dim sum and tasting fine Chinese tea during yum cha, like cookout in the U.S. family at the weekend, which provides a chance for people to better communicate with each other. 

         So, next time when you go to any Chinatown around the world, you can try some dim sum with your partners and enjoy the exploration of Southern China Culture!

it's me, haha. i love dim sum! 

The eternal classic and fashion --- Qipao

The eternal classic and fashion --- Qipao

By. Lucy (Xue Feng)

In China, the word “qipao” also known as "cheongsam” simply means "long dress”. It is derived from the dialect of Guangdong Province in China.

In Chinese dress history, qipao often represents an image of elegant and charming for Chinese women. It is a one-piece dress featured with a high neck collar and straight skirt which reflects the spirits and virtues of Chinese culture – harmony and unity. Qipao was traditionally made of silk and decorated with complex embroidery.

The History of Qipao
In Qing dynasty, Chi-pao is worn as robe in the palace.

The golden time of qipao is between 1911 and 1949. And in the 1930s, Shanghai had been advocating western lifestyle. So qipao was changed to shape the curve instead of covering the entire body, which made it popular among celebrities and the upper class at that time and gradually became Chinese fashion with the unique orient style. However, in 1949, the Communist Revolution banned qipao. Fortunately, Shanghai emigrants to Hong Kong was able to maintain the popularity of this fashion in the 1950s. In Hong Kong, Working women often wore Chi-Pao with jackets. At that time an off-the-rack qipao could cost about a hundred dollars while modified ones cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

Qipao in Modern Times
In the movie “In the mood for love” (《花样年华》), Maggie Cheung changed 23 different qipao which fully interpreted the beauty of orient women and the conventional Chinese dress.

Nowadays, qinpao usually appears in public and international occasions as a formal costume which symbolizes Chinese culture. And you can also see attendants wearing qipao as a uniform at many restaurants, hotels, and on airplanes in Asia. For Chinese students who study abroad like us, we would prefer to wear qipao as traditional costumes when attending parties and formal events.