Speaking of Kim Tae-hee, the lovely and apparently socially conscious actress was in Garibong-dong yesterday serving meals to foreign migrant workers.
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Speaking of Kim Tae-hee, the lovely and apparently socially conscious actress was in Garibong-dong yesterday serving meals to foreign migrant workers.
32 Comments
Not that I’m expressing cynicism, but she sure is trying very hard to shed the pampered princess chaebol wife-in-waiting image.
#1,
What better time to try than when you have a movie coming out?
#2.
Right on the money.
Can we have a Coke with that, please.
she’s obviously a bitch. i mean, really, who does she think she is serving food to migrant workers and calling attention to a worthy cause. next thing you know, she’ll be visiting orphanages. no way, i say. stars like her should be banned from doing good, period. they should be forced to scorn all low-life and consort only with their own rich and beautiful kind. That we we don’t have to wonder about their true intentions.
the nerve of her!
(not that i’m being cynical or anything.)
#5,
No, you’re being naive and antagonistic.
Maybe I’ve missed some migrant labor developments, but I thought these migrant workers are here to work and thus are paid–aside from those who get shafted.
Who are these guys at the soup kitchen?
Is it a truly large enough problem that soup kitchens are needed?
#7…that was my first thought too. Why would employed workers need a free soup kitchen? Seems to me like there are more needy folks out there who could use a helping hand.
#6….antagonistic? yes. Naive? well, I think that adjective belongs to you and the original poster.
Maybe Korea is adopting the US model of offering assistance without determining true need. At my school, there are undocumented parents who pull up in SUVs and drop off their kids, who head straight to the cafeteria to pick up their free breakfast. And did I mention the new outfits every week and the gold jewelry on an undocumented girl whose mother was getting WIC and food stamps on behalf of her US-born infant? “Gold jewelry is cultural, and it’s cheaper in Mexico,” I was told by a colleague. Doesn’t take new arrivals long to figure out how to game the system.
Wow… lots of cynicism here. I for one I’m glad that Kim Tae Hee took the time off from her busy schedule to help those less fortunate then her.
The fact that there were 10,000 photographers there or that her publicist probably told all the news agencies well in advance that she’d be at the function doesn’t diminish this in the least bit!
#9,
You obviously don’t know the meaning of the word.
#11,
You think? What the pictures doesn’t tell you is exactly how much time she actually spent there and how often she does this. Sure looks like she’s there every weekend, though, doesn’t it?
A news article(Korean) on Kim Tae Hee’s attempts to change her image.
http://news.naver.com/main/rea.....0001848328
It also lists the free meal work as one of the action items for her image changing campaign.
#13,
I wonder how mjw is going to try to spin that one.
#14.
Knowing him, he’ll link an article and tell me to “put things into perspective.”
#7 & 8 “Why would employed workers need a free soup kitchen?”
Well, that would be the logical question. You have to admit that this is pretty clever. She gets to “help” the poor, 3rd world people (as if they were homeless) without ever having to leave Korea.
Incidentally, I think WangKon was being ironic in #11…
I think it’s just that the headline mistakenly implied that everyone was employed. They’re hard to count, because they’re illegal, but maybe a quarter of all foreigners in Korea are illegal.
http://joongangdaily.joins.com.....id=2880037
Come on a legal visa, work for an asshole for 700K a month, get offered 900K to abandon your legal job to work for another asshole, 6 months later your visa expires. You stay anyway, lose your 900K job, and become part of an underground labor pool with no rights or recourse. Sometimes you make money, sometimes you don’t, but it’s enough to keep you in Korea, which has more opportunities than your home country.
I just wonder if the photographer also had the choice of photographing a more NE Asian-looking illegal migrant client of the soup line.
Hey, I like Kim Tae-hee. Yeah, she might be a “chaeboel wife in waiting,” but she seems kind of nice. And I like her commercials.
My friend from Sri Lanka has access to all kinds of perks that a lowly English teacher like me can only read about. His migrant center has regular “Multicultural Festivals”, he is ferried bi-monthly to a doctor’s office, and his boss only sometimes strikes him on the head.
Linkd, that was well put. I’m surprised at how many of you are under the impression that undocumented migrant workers are so well off. There are exceptions, those who know how to benefit from the system. I grew up in Chula Vista, many of my friends families were not within that catagory. Most of them barely got by. If they were able to accumulate anything extra they sent it back to their rather large extended families in Mexico. I would venture to guess that they are closer to typical than the ones driving the new SUV’s.
I don’t know this Kim Tae-hee. If she is trying to change her image, what was it before? Did she own sweat shops? If she is going to marry the son of a tycoon, maybe it’s her husband-to-be that should be ladling the soup. That would be novel.
Robert: I like Kim Tae-hee, too. And I think what she is doing is fine.
Mins. First of all, I think you don’t know me. You impute certain things about me because of disagreements we’ve had in the past. But that isn’t the same as knowing me.
The link that you provided is fantastic because it proves both our points to a degree. Your point is that she is shamelessly trying to change her image to gain more benefits. My point is that she is trying to change her image and there is nothing wrong with that. The reason why I said you were being naive is that everyone does this stuff. Wangkon’s point is right on the money, almost.
I say “almost” because I think it’s healthy to be a little bit cynical. But we shouldn’t get so carried away by it that we can’t sometimes just appreciate people for the good works that they do.
Kim wants to improve her image and she has chosen to come out and support a particular community. She should not be chastised for this.
Someguy…how did you like my spin?^^
Well you don’t know me either. Because I only said that she was trying to change her image. I didn’t say that there was anything wrong with it.
You know mjw, I don’t mind disagreements. What I can’t stand however is people like you putting words into my mouth and then going around painting an image of me based on those words, even though I have never said those words in the first place.
fair enough. point taken.
Whether trying to polish her image or not, Kim Tae-hee deserves credit for highlighting a downtrodden group that most Koreans either ignore or don’t know exists or wish would go away.
Worth noting is that the area where she was volunteering, Garibong-dong, will be destroyed and redeveloped in the next few years. So much for it being ‘Joseonjok Town’.
http://joongangdaily.joins.com.....id=2878344
#23,
“I only said that she was trying to change her image. I didn’t say that there was anything wrong with it.”
You didn’t quite say it, but you implied it in a subtle way when you described her as ” the pampered princess chaebol wife-in-waiting”.
Mins, you need to stop being hypocritical: if you don’t like jaebol, stop being on their payroll.
#27.
barbarian, you’re putting words into my mouth. Get a life.
How did I do that? Please elaborate your statement.
#22,
Not everybody calls the cameras when they do charity work, so you’re spin is less than impressive (and, again, those pictures don’t tell you how often she does this nor how long she was there).
Someguy… have you no sense of humor??
In any event, let’s just all agree on this one simple point: the girl is HOT.
#31,
Bah, don’t you know it’s all a game that they play with us?
PS. My wife is far more attractive.