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www.groovekorea.com / May 2014 20 A selection from our editors MUST READS m U S T r E A d S I’m in the mood for shopping page 92 The working woman page 42 One for the sharks page 110 Beef and friends page 88 Crying Nut page 106 My love affair with Shanghai started when I moved to Korea three years ago, and I have returned to it annually because it feels like a second home. Yet, even still, each visit reveals something new and enchanting. The city offers ever-changing cultural locations, arts, food and, most especially, fantastic shopping — what more could you want? “Companies don’t want women because (they think) they will quit,” says Rosie Park. At 24, she feels she has been stamped with an expiration date that, de- spite her hard work, will make it difficult for her to advance at the same rate as her male peers. Though the president is now speaking out in support of young women’s ascent up the corporate ladder, the road ahead is still full of social, cultural and familial obstacles. She had always dreamed of swimming across the English Channel, but the bitter reality of adult life proved that this was but a childhood fancy; it’s way too cold. So instead, Gene (pronounced Jinay) Giraudeau will have to settle for a 43-kilometer stretch between two islands in Thailand, actually 7 kilometers wider than her British goal. Last month I accompanied 11 of my closest friends on a trek up the stairs to Left Coast Artisan Burgers to see if the hype was worth it, and to see if they could handle our loud party of degenerates without any trouble. It was. They could. It was awesome. Martyn Thompson page 98 Korea looks a little different through the eyes of English artist Martyn Thompson: The country’s animals are encased in glass cages and its people are naked and forced into submissive, uncomfortable positions. Since 2008, Thompson has created works that offer Korea a reflection of how he sees it — as peculiar and twisted a portrayal as that might be. The five members of Crying Nut, Korea’s best-selling independent punk rock band, have been drinking, crying, fighting and, most prominently, making music together for 21 years. The band’s unprecedented popularity forged a path for the growth of punk music and culture in Korea. No one was producing a sound quite like theirs when the quintet screamed onto stages around Seoul and into people’s hearts.