>Hugz<

Personal Taste is an MBC show based on the novel of same title. It deals with a romance between a woman who gets tired of lover's lies and thinks that she needs a gay roommate and a man who is searching for a room and mistaken as gay. In this show, there are many gay characters. Even though most of them are so stereo-typed, But I think it's better than invisible. The real problem is that the script is not so good. No wonder because the novel is not that impressive. But I welcome this show, even though some people think that it's not good enough for those excellent actors and actresses in the show. Well, anyway better than nothing.

Currently, two gay-themed soaps are on Korean public TV networks. One is Beautiful Life and the other is Personal Taste . Beautiful Life shows the lives of big family members' in Che-ju Island. They encounter many burdens in their daily lives. But they overcome helping each other. That's the main theme of this show. One of the family members is gay and under lots of pressure of marriage. Not like in Western culture, in Asia it is expected to get married when he/she reaches certain age. Family members and even co-workers keep asking about personal life without boundaries. So it's not easy to live a closeted life in this situation. This character faces the same trouble. He's a doctor and in his 30's. No one doubts that he has to settle down with a good girl. But he's gay and starts to see a good guy (who suffered from forced marriage and now is a divorce'). Family members, not knowing anything about his being gay, expect him to get marr...

Just Friends is the 2nd film by Kwang-su Kim-jo, the director of "Boy meets a boy" and producer of "No Regret". His 1st film "Boy meets a boy" deals with the love between teenagers. The director says that he was frequentely asked if he was doing the sequel to it. "Just Friends" could be one in a way that it deals with love between friends in their 20's. In Korean, the title of this movie is "Chin-gu-sa-i". It's also the name of a famous LGBT organization of Korea. The name also express the status of Korean minorities who cannot fully express their relationship with their same-sex partner. Instead of saying "We're lovers", they tend to answer "Us? We're just friends" if asked. Back to the movie, In Korea, most men in their 20s has to serve in the army for 2 years. It can be hard for anyone, but it can be harder for gays and trans-gendereds. The movie starts with a man who visits his love...

"Hello My Love" is a Korean movie on a love triagle between a woman and two men. But this time, a men is loved by a woman and another man. Ho-jung(Jo-an) is waiting for her lover Won-jae who's studying in France. Finally he returns but with another man! And they start a wine bar together. Ho-jung notices something's going on between them and struggles to win Won-jae's love back, which is not an easy thing, of course. This movie opens recently in local theaters.

5 famous Korean directors get together to paint their version of love/lust on the screen. The thing that caught my eyes is two women on the second row who seem like secret lovers. According to the papers, they met as a wife and husband's lover and they became lovers. You may know it or not, the women (of the two) on the right is Korean pop diva and gay icon, Jung-wha Um . The title ogamdo can have various meanings because the word is a Chinese-oriented word( By that I don't mean that the word itself comes from China. I mean that the word consists of Chinese letters ). You know that Chinese can have many meanings even if it sounds the same. " Ogamdo " is a famous poem by Korean poeat called I-sang. I don't think I-sang is the poet's real name. In Korean, it can be heard as "something ideal" and "something weird" at the same time. Originally "Ogamdo" was a word created by the poet. In Korean, "a bird's-eye-vie...

Herb Ritts is an American photographer who is well known for his B/W pictures. He tooks pictures of many celebrities and directed music videos for Madonna, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson and Michael Jackson.

Josman is a British cartoonist who published his works through "Handjobs" magazine which fulfills the readers' fantasies about affairs between grown-ups and young boys. Josman's very talented and skilled cartoonist. He usually tells affairs between family members which makes me a little uncomfortable. But I got amazed by the way he depicts the scene. (He borrows the style from American super-hero cartoonists)