Lee Yejin C: Like Chuncheon’s claim to Son Heung-min and Busan positioning itself as the best place to eat gukbap, there’s something about hometown pride that’s embedded deep in the minds of people everywhere. In the YouTube series Daepyoja, seven people each representing their own regions of Korea discuss a new topic every week, then hold a vote to rank which region does it best (with subscribers joining in on the vote since episode 11). The show aims to promote what makes every corner of Korea a charming place to visit, giving viewers a chance to hear the local insider scoop on things like Jeju gulfweed soup (gukbap episode), Tongyeong ujja (noodle episode), Gwangju Family Land (theme park episode), and Haenam chicken tartare (meat and barbecue episode). When Na Sunuk, representing North Chungcheong Province, talks about a famous red fishcake street in Jecheon during the episode about spicy foods, Oking (Gyeonggi Province and Incheon City), Shin Gyujin (Gyeongsang Province), Kang Hyeonseok (Gangwon Province), and Yoo Hee-kwan (Seoul) immediately jump in to point out that the original fishcake street is in Suwon (part of Gyeonggi), that they probably use fishcakes from Busan (Gyeongsang), and that the stainless steel fryers they use to boil the fishcakes are no doubt made by POSCO, which is in Pohang (also Gyeongsang). The panelists are always desperate to take what the others say and somehow make it all about their own hometown.

As the show has a deal with Mega MGC Coffee where locations in the winning region sell drinks at a discount for five days, these discussions can turn fierce. The things they say may at times come across as baseless or over the top, but everyone’s sincere appeals for the sake of their beloved hometowns results in unexpectedly entertaining chemistry between them. And as viewers get to know the series regulars from across the country, they also get a chance to learn new things about these different regions that they never would have found out otherwise.

Kim Doheon (Music Critic): Something silent and invisible hovers constantly just above you: something like a ring floating over your head—like a tree ring. At times it can be a beautiful halo shining brilliantly down over you, and at other times it can become a painful shackle that tightens around your head like the Monkey King’s golden headband in Journey to the West. Singer-songwriter JUNGWOO heralded a change in her musical direction with her modern fairy tale Dawn, and now she’s released her second studio album, Cloud Cuckoo Land, a record that attempts to capture some intangible presence by the hand, give it a name, and make a story out of it. JUNGWOO describes her new album as a way through which she untangles the memories of her adolescence that haunt her still and which she might be better off not remembering at all. Fitting with the theme, tracks and their subject matter include “Cumulus,” the fictional “Cloud Cuckoo Land,” a “JUVENILE,” some “Nonsense,” and “Skin.” Changed, too, is her familiar acoustic approach to music. An unfinished acoustic version of the album, which she first performed in concert and could be heard on YouTube, is reinterpreted in the final version with desperate, lonely guitar layered in sound thanks to producers Ahn Da-young and Cloud. Unexpected personal growth and mysterious visions multiplying all around turn into poetry and music. The lethargic confessions, the paralyzed rage, and the solitude of stifling isolation rip through the rib cage and around the heart like a clear, pure voice carried on a cold wind. Personal monologue grows into a group chorus in this dark cuckoo land where we must be careful not to lose track of ourselves amidst the voices telling us to look down at reality and just as soon forget that it’s there.