Pann: Did BAP plagiarize Shinhwa's song??

Shinhwa - Young Gunz and B.A.P - No Mercy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l369LovUeog

Shinhwa - We Can Get It On and B.A.P. - Bad Man

http://tvpot.daum.net/clip/ClipView.do?clipid=52063673&q=bad+man+we+can+get+it+on

-

1. [+189, -5] Voted this up. I'm a BAP fan but I listened to both songs and feel that the melodies are similar enough to not claim that it isn't plagiarism. There seem to be some young fans demanding that the post be taken down, but please ignore them. I heard that Eric self-composed this song and that it's one of Shinhwa's most favorite songs. I understand that Shinhwa's fans have every right to be angry about this. Our fanbase only found out about this now so we have nothing to say but we have sent TS an e-mail requesting for a clarification. We're sorry.

2. [+160, -10] Shinhwa fans shouldn't let them get off this easy. This is ridiculous and should be left to Shinhwa and Shinhwa Company to handle, not the fans.

3. [+139, -2] Makes me more upset because it's the song that Eric chose as his favorite.

4. [+30, -0] I'm more surprised that it's their second time and that both songs are their title tracks.

5. [+24, -1] I just sent TS an e-mail about this. Apologies to Shinhwa Changjo fans for concerning you with this. As a BAP fan, I definitely hear the similarities and recognize the issue as something to apologize for. I hope that the composers don't do this again. I'm mad as well so I can't imagine how much more Shinhwa Changjo fans are angry over this.

-

Article: 'Part time jobs to pay for celeb gifts'... gifting foreign cars to stars, fans even taking private loans

Source: Kuki News via Nate

(Skipping paragraphs of stuff mentioned in previous articles about the same topic)

With the competition between fans heating up, there have also been instances of celebrities and agencies actually seeking such gifts up front. A popular idol group member of a three member group is one such example. 'A' released a gift list to the fans asking for electronic products, computers, home theater equipment, and even specific gifts for their parents. Fans responded by gifting A's parents with expensive health products along with the note, 'Thank you for giving birth to A.'

Solo singer 'B' who recently made a comeback gave his/her fans a list of 'birthday gifts' that led to his fans equipping his studio with expensive audio equipment. B even made sure to write the  list to specific fanclubs so that the gifts didn't overlap. The same tactic was used to furnish his home.

Girl groups and other female celebrities will even show off the luxury gifts they receive like heels, handbags, and rings on their SNS accounts.

To provide these stars with such lavish gifts, fans have resorted to taking out private loans and extra part time jobs. Lee Hyun Joo (24) also took out a private loan but had to eventually ask her parents for help once she couldn't meet the payments. "I was desperate to not lose to a competing fancafe."

Seoul University's Psychology professor Kwak Geum Joo had to comment, "Fans feel a type of pleasure from giving gifts to celebrities. They turn their affections into a physical product, which promotes competition between each other. It's not a healthy fandom culture at all."

Cube Entertainment's Ahn Hyo Jin added, "It puts us in an uncomfortable situation when fans give excessive gifts. The company will return gifts that we feel is too much and try to lead them to giving to charities instead."

When we met with another hardcore fan Kang Min Kyung (27), she gave a deep sigh. She first started 'supporting' her star with simple gifts but the culture turned out to be nothing at all like what she expected.

When her favorite singer 'K' was making his comeback, his fanclub started collecting money to deliver a healthy lunch box set for his comeback stage. Because of her older age, the fancafe admin expected her to make a $100+ donation. An additional $80 was demanded for the 100 or so other lunch boxes prepared for the broadcast staff.

"Other cafes will just order a lunch car, which costs upwards of several hundreds. When a singer makes an acting debut and starts script reading practices, we all have to order lunch boxes for both the cast and the staff."

With celebrities showing off what they receive on SNS, the competition between fanclubs to provide the best grows only more severe.

"There are a lot of celebrities who receive money from fans directly to their bank accounts. Whenever a star leaves a comment somewhere like, 'The amp in my studio is broken so I can't work,' there are already dozens of fans messaging him for his bank account so that they can send money over."

Some stars have even taken to indirectly asking fans for gifts for their parents and their pets. All it takes is a message saying, "I need to buy my parents a gift for Parents' Day..." and he'll receive gift certificiates by the dozens.

"Giving their parents gifts is not even the worst of the issue. Some fans even volunteer to work as a chaffeur for their parents. I once saw a fan go to the star's parents' house to clean it for them."

One fanclub admin had to resort to using her credit card to pay for a luxury gift and a birthday party. Unable to make her payments, she eventually took out another private loan and is now working two jobs to pay them all off.

Kang's fan friend took out a $3,000 loan for her star's birthday but is now paying double that in interest. Fortunately, she was able to help alleviate the burden by selling some of the photos and videos she took of her oppa.

yo this is so long ... kudos if you're reading it.

There have also been several instances of fans cheating each other out of their money, such as in 2010 when T-ara's fanclub collected nearly $10,000 only to have the admin run away with it.

A DC Inside rep had to say, "These fraud cases happen a lot more than you'd think but until an actual crime is reported, the site has no way to help."

There aren't only celebrities who request fan gifts, as several many have rejected them just as often as well. Actress Shin So Yool returned all of the gifts her fans delivered on her birthday, saying, "Thank you so much but I hope you'll give to the needy instead." Touched, fans became even more hardcore fans of her.

SHINee's Taemin also returned all of the presents delivered to his agency. A rep of his company said, "Taemin is so grateful for the love of his fans. He feels satisfied with their love and asked that they spend the gifts where it's important. Everyone was touched by that."

Lee Seung Gi's fanbase supports in an entirely different way. For his birthdays and anniversaries, they'll group up and volunteer at charities, bringing with them armfuls of necessary equipment.

G-Dragon's fans will use their donations collected to donate to the needy under his name. Yang Yoseob's fans are also known for their consistent donations. Charities that EXO and other SM Entertainment stars are known for volunteering at have been attracting fans even internationally.

Other fanclubs will donate rice wreaths at drama production conferences.

Super Junior's Siwon recently stressed the importance of giving to charities at his fan meeting and is known for his many volunteer activities through his church.

-

1. [+191, -10] Fans seem stupid for giving stars all that stuff, but the stars seem just as stupid for accepting all of it too.

2. [+167, -6] This is why everyone is obsessed with becoming a celebrity. All you have to do is get popular and you can get all these things for free.. Then when they get forgotten, they come out on talk shows and cry about it. What a cycle.

3. [+155, -5] I'm a stupid fangirl myself but I really don't understand fans who will spend that kind of money for gifts. If they have the extra money for it, then it's not my business, but I know several students around me who will spend several hundreds without a blink. I have nothing to say about that.

-

Reader request.

-

Article: [M! Countdown video] EXO's 'Growl' first reveal, like a scene out of a dance movie

Source: News 24 via Naver

1. [+255, -7] The title didn't appeal to me at first but I think it sounds better than I expected. EXO is trustable when it comes to performance/dance.

2. [+177, -27] Way better than 'Wolf'... but I think the song places too much emphasis on the performance aspect. The performance is great but they're all practically lip syncing.. I think singers should be better singers than they are performers. I hope they'll develop into singers who emphasize their vocals instead of performance eventually.

3. [+147, -4] Even as a guy, I can say that they're good dancers.

4. [+134, -3] I'm iffy with SM about anything else  but think they're the best when it comes to choreography... Can't take my eyes off of them ♥

5. [+112, -7] Their performance is great but I think it's more important to be better singers... SM is making them lip sync to show off their performance but I trust they'll sing live as time goes on ^^

6. [+110, -7] Why didn't they give EXO this song from the get go? That Wolf song was so bad.

7. [+91, -5] That Matrix dance made me go wow... Thumbs up!

-

courtesy of on.cc

Martial Artist Law Ho Ming immigrated to Canada at age 9 and began studying martial arts at age 15. He excels in Taekwondo, mixed martial art, praying mantis fists and other styles. After graduating with a criminology degree from the Simon Fraser University. Because of his love for martial arts, in 2007 he went to Beijing to participate in Jackie Chan's disciple recruitment and officially joined the business. He said, "That year my Papa had terminal stage cancer. When I received the call to compete in Beijing, I turned it down because my Papa couldn't go. Before his passing Papa learned about this and encouraged me to go out and try, not to miss the opportunity. Finally the next day he passed away and the day after I went to compete in Beijing in hopes of not disappointing his expectation of me."

Although his run in the top 20, through a friend's recommendation Law Ho Ming returned to Hong Kong and participated in action film direction and performance. Earlier he participated in the Dante Lam Chiu Yin film UNBEATABLE (GIK JIN). He said, "The most memorable was the fight with (Eddie) Peng Yu-Yen. The director told me to keep chasing him to hit until the director yelled cut. Finally the director praised that everyone fought beautifully." Aside from on screen development, he also hoped to have a chance to be an action director to give him more dimensions in his development.

Article: 'Superstar K5' promised a transformation... what has changed since season 4?

Source: Mydaily via Naver [2]

1. [+1,886, -47] I don't think it's fair that they place so much emphasis on the personal stories of each contestant before they go up to sing. The viewer is obviously not just judging them on their singing anymore... It's like they're trying to gain your sympathy. Look at Ulala Session... They hid the fact that the late Im Yoon Taek was battling cancer and kept it a secret until they passed into Super Week. They tried to keep it a secret until the end but when it came out, people were all that more impressed... Man, I miss him now.

2. [+1,592, -78] If they really want to be singers, they should just sing instead of talking about all of their hardships. Their hardships have nothing to do with their singing. Win with your talent alone.

3. [+1,199, -70] I hope they don't pick based on beauty this time

4. [+1,029, -112] I feel like Roy Kim and Jung Jun Young fans messed up the last season of the show.

5. [+1,432, -46] Why are there so many people in Korea who sing so well? So many contestants left a great impression on me... nevermind that the show is still using crappy editing, though.

6. [+1,271, -25] Can they cut back on the amount of time the contestants spend talking about their hardships... and really supporting Park Shi Hwan-ssi ㅎㅎ

7. [+1,182, -19] They tricked me into waiting for Cha In Pyo's son...

8. [+1,231, -135] Superstar K is the best audition show... the others aren't up to par.

9. [+982, -35] I'm thankful for Superstar K for discovering Busker...

10. [+936, -36] Park Shi Hwan is a jewel. If it's true that they eliminated him for season five, then goooose bumps!

-

Just answering a few questions tonight.

NB stream is over for good. My last stream a few weeks ago got overridden with offensive content, which resulted in my accounts being banned. I worked with support to get them unbanned but I don't feel that the stream is worth the hassle to continue anymore. I really, really enjoyed meeting all of you and hope that you got to see at least some of what goes on behind the scenes on the blog and a bit of my thought process.

I'm sorry if I haven't been responding to e-mails or requests lately. I've been receiving some lewd crap from people and have generally just been avoiding it for as long as I can but I'll slowly start to check it more regularly now.

As for content, I'm kind of at a loss. I know this is going to sound mad pussy but I'm cautious/scared about posting certain stuff now only because I know I'll receive backlash for it. I've been receiving some concerned e-mails about some non-entertainment articles and of course fandoms raging at me for other stuff and I kind of just miss the days when NB was a niche blog with readers who weren't a part of any fandom and just visited for entertainment or whatever.  I obviously shouldn't care since it's my blog but that's not the case anymore and I consider this blog as much yours as it is mine now. I try to take in as much of the concerns and requests as possible but yeah, I don't know anymore. I want to just yolo it and post whatever but I don't think it's possible anymore with the size the blog has grown to and the responsibility that entails. The blog is probably mad boring right now for some of the older readers. I'll figure something out... sooner or later.

And to the readers still raging at me for the lack of positive posts on the blog... I'll post up anything positive as long as I don't have to translate "so pretty" 10 times in a row. I honestly feel like I'm losing brain cells when I have to do that. Not that netizen comments have ever been... intelligence boosting.

For those asking about the random post the other night, yeah the person got back to me but things didn't work out and I'm so fucking miserable right now. Thank you for being understanding about it and letting me borrow the blog momentarily for that.

You guys are the best. ♥ Thank you to all of the mods, too!

courtesy of on.cc

courtesy of on.cc

Iris Chung, Celia Kwok, Mei Mei Tsang and Asa Kwan wish a speedy recovery for DaDa Chan
courtesy of mingpao.com

DaDa Chan Jing yesterday originally was to attend the Wired Cafe one year anniversary, but two nights ago she suddenly announced her retirement online. Yesterday she even went "missing", as her friend Celia Kwok Wing Yi and Iris Chung Choi Hei took her place. Junior colleagues Mei Mei Tsang Sin Mei and Asa Kwan Lei Sa also came in support.

Reportedly DaDa earlier was acting like a big shot at the film LAN KWAI FONG 3 (HEI OI YEH PO 3) production start ceremony, bullied company new comer Mika Siu, declined to be interviewed with her and thus led to the dispute. Yet none of those involved appeared to explain in person.

Celia and Iris did not mind being "second choices". As for DaDa's claim that she had mood disorder and decided to retire, Iris said, "Lately I haven't been too happy either, did anyone see my facebook posting? Recently I broke up with my boyfriend, my heart is broken and I am very sad! Everyone more or less has city disorder. I have tried to leave home before."

Celia at 13 already knew DaDa. She said, "I definitely would support her. I also sent her text messages to her. She replied and told me not to worry, she probably was fine. I don't think DaDa is irresponsible, maybe she has her reasons." She said that the most important was for DaDa to live happily. Mei Mei said that DaDa was no different normally. She only hoped her friend would be happy like she was before and looked forward to her friend's text message reply.