Paparazzi and Foreign Buying of Korea Companies

Just in time for Mel Gibson's The Paparazzi movie, here is a candid shot of Tommy from 하나둘셋/hana-dool-set (1-2-3) fame!


It's Tommy!

Actually, he's on the snippet-show 'Wake-up' where he and a Korean girl (and a lovable muppet-like friend) say simple phrases again and again and again...all to the same music everytime. ("I'm hot...I'm hot...I'm cold...I'm cold...I'm hhhhoooottt...I'm cccooooolllld") I tape it every morning for my kids back home and try to learn a bit of Korean...everyone speaks so (relatively) slowly on the show and uses simple tenses, which is good for us gringos.

It was pretty funny seeing him...it was at Starbucks in Sinchon and I immediately recognized him (well, seeing him everyday with his two-tone hair makes him an easy mark). I was waiting for a bud and he was with a gal so I didn't intrude...but I did intrude enough to take this pic. I was going to approach him, but then I thought it weird to act like a fan for a guy who's on a kid's simple English program; but I'm sure if my friend showed up before he left I'd have done something. I'll probably hear from his lawyers soon anyways, on account of the pic. It's tough to make out that it's actually him, so I doubt any of the local rags would give me much for it...there goes my dream of paying for my trip home with a snapshot.

It's weird, you know. There are so many celebrities in Seoul (especially in Yeouido, as the MBC and KBS broadcasting firms are located here). When I went to that party after the MTV concert my friends said they saw lots of 'talents' (singers, comedians, actors, anyone in the limelight) but I hadn't a clue who they were.

One time I was in the gym with my 장인어른/jang-ee-neo-ruen/father-in-law and he introduced me to this guy while we were in the shower...he looked quite familiar but given the surroundings I couldn't quite place him. Then I got it...he was the anchorman from KBS news (now he's the Washington DC correspondent). There's also a popular comic performing in a bar in Yeouido (I think he's a part-owner of the place) but I had no idea until my junior from work told me (he got his autograph, too).

On another unrelated topic: remember when I said that foreigners are buying up Korean companies? Well, looks like they've bought about 44% (!) of the stocks on the Korean Stock Exchange. Wow, can you say takeover? What would happen if Americans bought large swathes of Canadian companies? Oh, ya, they already have. Anyways, some Koreans are calling foul (forgetting that you can't have capitalism without capital. The craziest idea is the one to levy a tax on the investing funds...ya, right...as soon as that gets serious many foreigners'll just sell pre-emptively and pull the rug out from many of the firms (not to mention the economy) here. Of course there'd be calls to prohibit capital from leaving Korea (as there was in the Park Chung Hee era (1961-1979) when emigrants could only take about $20 with them when they left the country--although I'm sure that didn't apply to government-types). That kind of thinking would put Korea about 10-20 back from where it is (which is, in many areas, 5-15 years back from the West).

That was close, almost sounded political there. Just so you know, I don't make this blog a sounding board for my political views, however when it comes to economics and business I think I have a relatively educated and experienced opinion...so be prepared to be bored (or aroused, depending on your view of the dismal science) every once in a while.

UPDATE: looks like The Donald is putting some more dough into Korea now as well.