Korean Community & Argentina
Topic: People and Communities
The Korean immigration to Argentina is one of the most important and singular of all migratory flows to ever come to our country. Unlike several of the other migratory groups that came to our country, the Korean community features a very unique style and relationship with the local society, for they have maintained their traditions and culture in such a strong way that in many cases they have built a society within a society that share little. Little Korea, in the neighborhood of Bajo Flores, is indeed that. One other decisive factor in this particular bond is the fact that Argentina and Korea have traditionally belong to geopolitical and economical differential spheres of influence, even more decisive is the fact that these cultures are totally different and the fact that they are together sharing a specific space is the result of a particular world event. Most Korean immigrants originally from South Korea left their motherland during the war of 1950-1953, fearing the invasion of the communist domain up north. One interesting feature is that most immigrants came in an organized way, bringing their business and culture in a deep sense. Focusing on keeping their own traditions and incorporating some of the local features without ever forgetting who they are and maintaining that line clean and clear, Argentina -with all the social, cultural, ethnical and political differences that might have- appeared as a milestone to progress and community development, and still does, due to the fact that the flow has not ceased yet. In 1984 15,000 Koreans had relocated in our country. By 1987 the number had grown to 20,000, without counting the number of local births, tourism influx and business relocation. Currently, over 25,000 Koreans live in Argentina and an approximate number of 2000 people wish to relocate to our country yearly. Bringing their cultural heritage and traditions, Koreans in Argentina whilst maintaining their own identity in a sharper and stronger way than other communities, have began to tie deeper bonds with the sense of being Argentine in their own personal way. Even more, in these days of global culture, the Asian input provided by this community is growing in importance. For example there’s a proliferation of cultural bonds in health related issues and body-mind care. Martial arts, cuisine, religion and conception of the universe are the main contribution in cultural terms. While on the social and economical side, their hard work efficiency is both appealing and awkward to Latin standards. Hopefully with the pass of time and a richer two way flow of influence those differences will be better understood and respected.
Park Soo Keun
malba For more information: Email: admin@frassinetti.com Bob Frassinetti.
Vintage Radio Postcards from Argentina
Vintage real photos from Argentina
Vintage Cars from Argentina Press here to go back to web blog:Daily Updates on Art, Antiques, Collectibles as well as travel information for Buenos Aires, Argentina. Phone me thru Skype, ID: Bob Frassinetti or you can also chat with me thru Yahoo, press here: Yahoo Contact Find me on MySpace and be my friend!

Pinocchio an Italian subliminal idea
Topic: People and Communities
The story of Pinocchio and the story of our lives

Most of adults in this era have had at least one kind of encounter or connection with the story of Pinocchio, the wooden puppet who wishes to become a flesh and bone boy. If asked upon the plot, I think the great majority of us would first point out the problematic of truth and lies. The ever-growing pointy nose is an image engraved in our minds. Whether you read the original text or you saw the movie, the plot seeking idea generally leads to that sort of stereotyped image of a truth-lie binomial antithesis.
However, the story alike the main character of the puppet finding its way thru to become a real boy is richer and better than that.

Le Avventure di Pinocchio; Pinocchio’s adventures was a children’s novel written by an Italian author, Carlo Collodi, and published during the 1880s. This classic of children's literature has been adapted to almost every language in the planet and was taken to the Silver screen and theatres from around the globe. May be Disney's 1940 classic animated movie of the same name is the best know movie feature, though not the only.

However, the original book is not totally reflected in the feature movies. This is not just any fairy tale book, this is a truly complex story telling that compels the reader to a rich and interesting insight to read deeper in each word and line.

The story narrates much more than the wooden puppet’s adventures throughout the process of finally becoming a boy. Hard realities, the complexity of the society of those days, the relationship with knowledge and the social bond with learining in those days of new modernity. The need for food, shelter and other basic measures of daily life, and the setting of the story in the very real Tuscan area of Italy add an extra flavor to a complex story and litereary approach to real complex life.

The specialists in classic letters find in Pinocchio’s stories traces of the great Masters such as Homer and Dante, Bocaccio and many others. Much alike the work of Alice in Wonderland, can be done with Pinocchio.

Much of its subliminal ideas and conceptions have cross our imaginary as social body in more than one occasion, even if we don’t realize it. Being John Malkovich is a non related movie that takes upon some of the ideological challenges presented dor exampleby the original Italian Pinocchio fantastic story.

Indeed, the world of toys, games and cultures go blending in throughout times and societies. Some of the problematics of the modern world addressed thru less convencional means –than sociology, phychology, anthropology, etc- are richer and broader. In this case, a children’s novel, a story of a puppet “toy” becoming a real person is filled with complexity and annalysis that enrich our social perception. Much alike what Roger Caillois proposes in his study of toys and games, the playing of a story expresses a lot of who we are and what we wish for in our present everyday world.

For more information on this theory of Roger Caillois, see our Toy Musuem web sit. When you purchase an item at the Buenos Aires Toy Museum all profits are invested in the development of the Museum. When buying a toy from our Toy Museum you're not only buying a bit of the History of Argentina, but also contributing to the conservation of vintage and antiques toys, and to furthering the museum's research project on Argentine toy industries and to rescue valuable items for forget and the pass of time. Thank you for helping us to keep on developing this fantastic project! The Buenos Aires, “Toy Museum Team”.



British Arts Center
For more information :Email: The Buenos Aires Toy Museum, Bob Frassinetti. Press here to go to the Toy Museum :The Buenos Aires Toy Museum, Argentina. Bob Frassinetti


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Bob Frassinetti Copyright 2006, Roberto Dario Frassinetti

Park Soo Keun a one of a kind artist.
Topic: People and Communities
Park Soo Keun is one of the most outstanding modern Korean artists of all. When asked upon this artist said he dedicated his life to express "goodness and truthfulness of man" by taking the life of marginalized and nameless commoners. A true nature of every day objects arises from his works with the aid provided by the use of simple-plain shapes and lines. The feel of being Korean, the beauty within and the sense of their national spirit revalued thru means of texture like tough granite are lifted to another level thanks to his works. Christened by specialists as the most indigenous Korean painter in the 20th century, he indeed achieved to set a before and after in the world of Art. Park Soo Keun was born in Jeong-lim-ri, Yanggu-myeon, Yanggu-gun in 1914. Yanggu is the place where Soo Keun Park’s passion and dreams were born. It is a place where every trace done by him is contained, and Yanggu has not only the clean and unpolluted nature but also numerous good-hearted people. According to his biographers after seeing Millet's the Angelus', he became more interested in painting. He is said to have prayed to god everyday to help him to be a great painter like Millet After seeing Millet's the Angelus', he became more interested in painting. He is said to have prayed to god everyday to help him to be a great painter like Millet. When he was only 18 years old he won a prize at Chosun Art Exhibition with a watercolor titled Spring comes. In 1936 he wins his second prize at the 15th Sunjun art competition with the watercolor Working woman. In 1937 he wins his third prize at the 16th Sunjun with Spring, which is about girls picking herbs By 1945 when he’s 45 years old he quits the job at the province office and goes back to Kumsung. He begins to teach painting at Kumsung Middle School. His tight relationship with the Korean Communist government resulted in him moving to South Korea. In 1958 USAFK library held the Exhibition of Park Soo Keun's paintings. At the same time he submits paintings to the Korea Modern Art Exhibition in Manila. Although he had become a big name in art community and was at his height as an artist, he was poor like the objects in the paintings. However by 1965 he was in a very bad state of health. He died at home at one o'clock in the morning on May 6. His last words were "I thought heaven was near but it wasn't. It wasn't" He was buried in Dongshin churchyard in Kyunggi Province. Park's last painting, Boy, was exhibited at the 14th National Art Competition under the permission of Mrs. Park. After his death there were tons of world wide shows. Seventy-nine paintings of Park Soo Keun were exhibited at the posthumous exhibition of him at the National Information Center. An exhibition of Park Soo Keun's small paintings was held at Hyundai Gallery. Two hundreds of watercolors and pencil sketches and twenty oil paintings were exhibited. By 1974 an exhibition of Park Soo Keun's wood paintings were held at Bakrok Gallery. And in 1975 Moonhyun Gallery hosted an exhibition to remember the10th anniversary of Park Soo Keun's death and published a catalog of his paintings. In 1978 the Munhwa Gallery hosted an exhibition of Park Soo Keun's posthumous works and published an illustration book of his paintings. One of his favorite subject matters, a woman with a baby on her back, was engraved on the stone magnified by 15 times. Recent auctions have shown how much has Park Soo-keun s paintings are being worldly appreciated. Nosang (On the Road) was auctioned off at 520 million won (about US$500,000) on Jan.26 by Sotheby’s, setting a record as the artist's most expensive work sold in Korea. Painted in 1962, this piece fully represents the artist’s style and sensitivity to his subject despite its simple composition. Another of Park’s works, A Sitting Woman and a Jar, was sold for 14.6 billion won (US$12.3 million) at Christie's New York auction in March of last year, breaking another previous record.
Park Soo Keun For more information: Email: Bob Frassinetti. Press here to go back to web blog:Daily Updates on Art, Antiques, Collectibles as well as travel information for Buenos Aires, Argentina. Phone me thru Skype, ID: Bob Frassinetti or you can also chat with me thru Yahoo, press here: Yahoo Contact
Bob Frassinetti Bob Frassinetti. Copyright 2006, Roberto Dario Frassinetti.

Argentina and The American Community in Buenos Aires
Topic: People and Communities

Being sensual, being a global tango dancer while in Buenos Aires. The great flow of travelers coming to the shores of the Silver River, Rio de la Plata, in search of a life experience of dance and sensuality grows by the minute. Buenos Aires is the place where the sensual dance was born late in the 19th century, and to where tango lovers from around the planet turn to for a true encounter with the dance, its traditions, its unique features and to discover its modern place in the Argentine and global culture. Tango is a dual word, for it makes reference both to the dance and the music. And while this last meaning was the one that prevailed throughout the second half of the twentieth century and the first one got left behind in the darkness of late milongas –tango dance places- and complicated cultural features; it’s in these third millennium days when and where the original dance has retuned to the centerline of society and world around attention. The ritualized ceremony of tango, the costume dress and suit, the special shoes and the rich brilliantly executed music has been exported around the globe by passionate Argentines. Now you can tango in Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo, San Francisco… but there’s no place like the birth place, the true originality of Buenos Aires and its people. Tango dancers from all over the globe flow to Buenos Aires for the true thing. The intrinsic magic within the atmosphere is truly appealing to those coming to BA. That individual who back home lives a pretty normal life, works every day from 9 to 5, and enjoys weekends with family and friends chilling at home or outing… when in Buenos Aires, all dressed up in tango outfit, heading towards a milonga ballroom and inviting a gorgeous local dancer to join him or her at the dance floor takes them to a world of fantasy and sensuality where anything and everything can happen. There are countless life stories of tango fans relocating permanently or semi permanently to Buenos Aires for an everlasting tango oriented life with all those things you’ve dreamed of and much more. This South American capital city is not only culturally and socially appealing to people around the globe, but it’s also really affordable in a great living sense. The local currency is 3 to one Dollar or 3.5 to one Euro, so your life expenses when in Buenos Aires or anywhere else in Argentina drop to an extent that for the same money you spend back home in an average existence, down in BA you get to live the life you’ve ever dreamt of. As the Knight Ridder journalist Anne Chalfant described in her recent piece on Affordable Argentina: “Some people, such as longtime Oakland, Calif., resident Deby Novitz, can't settle for a few weeks a year. In December 2004, the 52-year-old technology consultant sold her house in California and moved to Buenos Aires to dance full time. She picked up an affordable three-bedroom apartment in the city's ritzy Palermo neighborhood and has turned it into a guesthouse for visiting dancers. It's often booked two months in advance.” Deby though American is now a true Argentine tango citizen, living the life she always dreamt of… The testimonials of those life changing decisions are endless, for in some way Buenos Aires and Argentina have become an earthy paradise to which people seeking to enjoy life to its most relocate and make their dreams come true! For more information on Argentina newcomers and their life experiences check our previous articles on this matter here, press: Updates on travel and inside views for Buenos Aires,Argentina.

 

Need an apartment along Defensa Street in between San Telmo and Plaza de Mayo, the heart of Buenos Aires, Press Here. And so if you are interested in Art, Design or Antiques, and you are travelling to Buenos Aires, Argentina, or to Santiago, Chile or even Montevideo, Uruguay and need to buy and export these items or only need tips and travel information, please feel free to email us…….Please feel free to contact Bob Frassinetti with this email address: Email: Bob Frassinetti.

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Italian Community V's Italian Elections
Topic: People and Communities
Once placed the last vote inside the ballot boxes Italy’s fait was sealed. Prodi –Italy’s new prime minister- and Berlusconi –the now soon to be former Italian Prime minister- disputed the majority of votes. Whilst Italy voted divided, and was going to address Senators to one and deputies to the other, the overseas districts were the ones who finally decided the destiny of the boot-shaped country. This new important sector of the voters was unknown to the candidates, so campaign was much of a test and error attempt of wining those voters.

We mentioned this situation a couple of weeks ago; when Argentina’s Italian community began to take part in the political debate. 12 deputies and 6 senators were elected in the overseas territories. The countdown was impressive, one vote up, then two down, the margin was narrow… and those who broke the tie were the emigrated Italians.

While the center-left wing voters from Italy and from abroad altogether celebrated in unity; Berlusconi addressed the voters from overseas in a discriminatory manner, arguing that the bunch of Argentine communists had voted in a revenge manner…

This is something that comes from the title holders from Italy that resent the Argentine population for the economic breakdown of 2001-2002 that devaluated their titles and made them loose money.

As in every country in the world, politics and economics are two different worlds, which meet in some points… As to the “communist” label, it is indeed evident that Argentina is not a communist country, progressive in some ways, not communist. Italy’s prime minister should mind his words in a broader sense… He addressed the voters who chose his opponent over him as idiots (coglioni) and stupid (stronzo). Mr Berlusconi should know better, democracy is based upon different grounds and foundations than those of verbal and physical attacks.

Italy has always been broader than the original Mediterranean country; the fact that its immigrants have populated the Americas for over two centuries is something that needed to be taken into consideration and included as Italians in their own motherland. These elections have proven the fact that life experiences and history pay off, and these Italians from around the globe have taken in their own hands their present and future.


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