MINX's Yoohyeon is your crazy 4D girl

I am now so in love with TWICE just like my partner at MINX Philippines fanbase. TWICE made us crazy.

TWICE members are known for their dorkiness and craziness. Nayeon is dubbed the successor of A Pink's Bomi for craziness. I knew that so much about Bomi's gorilla move already.

Months ago I discovered this group called MINX. They're a bunch of crazy girls too. I see that a lot through their web series, MINX Play. They're a genuine bunch of people made so relatable to us. I can see that the concept between TWICE and MINX is incredibly similar. MINX states that theirs is a mischievous tomboy concept.

It took me a bit of exploration and luck to discover MINX, and I struck gold. Now my job is to convince you I've found a piece of gold. I opened MINX Malaysia on Facebook for that.

Many idols can sing. That's my first pass. Next comes concept. I'm into looking at cute girls.

There I have it! MINX is a cute group. To top it off, they're based on the mischievous girl concept. I don't need to see anymore innocent groups for the time being. We have A Pink, Lovelyz and G-friend for that.

These days, MINX wanted to show us their hardworking side so they uploaded Minx Practice instead of Minx Play. They wanted us to see THEY CAN.

Yoohyeon showcased her vocal prowess in her cover of Urban Zakapa's "Drinking Coffee". No doubt she's the lead singer of MINX. Fans praised her for being such a angel in real life. And indeed she can be dim witted at times.

Whenever I give my photocard people were puzzled why MINX was never heard before. I should just answer, this is my proud discovery and you should check it out. Haha.

TWICE 트와이스, reverse driving and how K-pop chart works

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TWICE's debut song "Like Ooh Ahh" climbed back up on the charts [1,2] and got to do another round of promotions on music shows. How excited I am when I heard that!



After three weeks of promotion, it seemed that Like Ooh Ahh would fall off the charts. But for some reason, the song climbed back up to 9th place 75 days after releaase. It occupied 10th place twice, on November 10 and then December 26. On January 9 the song is now 1st place contender for SBS Inkigayo.

This is a phenomenon called reverse driving. It happened to EXID one year ago and now it's happening to TWICE. Artists can be called back mandatorily by music programs for climbing back up the charts.

Thanks to ONCEs, TWICE had reverse driving through conventional means. That's also because of a 'vacuum' left on music charts. EXID's case was a more extreme case: months after they finished promoting their track, they shot back all due to a viral fancam.

Now we should treat TWICE 트와이스 for a first place on music shows shall we?

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How the music chart shows of South Korea work is shrouded in mystery to most fans.

The K-pop and music industry is a saturated and competitive field. Artists consists of more than just idols. There are many types of singers competing for the limited space available on music program.

How limited are spaces available on music programs? There are six major music chart programs - SBS-MTV The Show, KBS Music Bank, MBC Show Champion, MBC Music Core, Mnet M! Countdown, SBS Inkigayo. Each show airs for around 1 and a half hour weekly and has space for 20 songs. Each artist promotes for 1 month except for special stages.

The space available for music programs is scarce and choosing which artist to promote is a fundamental problem that must be answered by TV stations.

In the age of Web 2.0, the decision to promote artists is partially democratized. The distribution company (like 1theK, CJE&M, KT Music) uploads the MV on Youtube and music streaming sites. The song is immediately logged onto the music charts, though the information is not shown to the public. When a song reaches a certain popularity, consideration can be made for artists to promote on music chart shows.

TWICE member comparison chart and the family book confusion

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How long has TWICE debuted? Not very long is my short answer. Describing their popularity shot up like a rocket blasting into space is not an exaggeration.

I've had so much of their debut song Like Ooh-Ahh - (Ooh-Ahh 하게) in their MV, dance practice and regular music shows - countless videos alraedy. The amazing fact is I never grow tired of it.

They become popular enough to be featured on Weekly Idol. Based on information from the show, someone (Instagram: @jihyo.twice) compiled a chart comparing members of TWICE.





The chart is a good summary of the show, and a very valuable piece of infographic indeed!

The obvious question is of course, the age of the members. The maker stated that "Jihyo (early 97-liner) is friends with 96-liners but Mina born in the next month considers Jihyo as a more senior person". So, why are Mina and Jihyo who are born in the same year are treated differently? And it appear puzzling that Jihyo treats those born in the previous year as people of her age. It appears that this "family book confusion" has no explanation, and Jihyo is playfully named the culprit.

Let me tell you this. There is an explanation for seniority in K-pop groups and it has to be done from an East Asian perspective. Are you ready?

Seniority in South Korea is calculated based not on the Western calendar but the lunisolar calendar. The lunisolar calendar was invented to mark seasons, each lasting two weeks, to facilitate agricultural activities. That's because China and East Asia in general were agrarian societies in the past. Interestingly, the date of each season is fixed in the Western calendar. The new year in the lunisolar calendar falls on 4th of February [in the Western calendar] each year.

What about the date of Lunar New Year? For the purpose of determining a person's age, the date of Lunar New Year isn't used. The same point has been iterated by Chinese Feng Shui masters for determining Chinese zodiacs.

Now look at the chart again. Jihyo was born on 1st of February 1997 and that puts her in the same rank of seniority to those born in 1996.

Next question: How do I come up with this explanation? First off, I am a Chinese and observe the lunisolar calendar. One fact is, East Asian cultures are very similar to each other because they stem from common roots. There are many things of East Asia that do not make sense from the Western perspective, but make a lot of sense to me. While the job of K-pop news sites is to present news stories, but readers are free to judge the stories from their own cultural perspective, which may not be entirely correct. To judge a story accurately, reading commentaries and opinion pieces may help, and the actual key is to have good understanding of East Asian cultures.

Lastly, I must commend the Koreans for preserving the Confucianist values better than the Chinese.

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My song of the year called Me Gustas Tu

I've known G-friend 여자친구 since their debut but it was their second release that really caught my attention. The title song, Me Gustas Tu (Spanish phrase that translates to "I like you") is really an earworm that I got hooked the instant I heard it.

Me Gustas Tu reminds me so much of the innocent concept I'm so used to watching in my girl group taste. Does that remind of A Pink? Yes, certainly. I'm not alone: A satire piece from Asian Junkie remarked how similar Me Gustas Tu is to A Pink and J-pop.

The lyrics of Me Gustas Tu describes the budding love of a girl for a boy and the desire to get together as a a couple.

First off, I started with the MV. I just can't contain the innocent vibe that flows out of the girls.

Me Gustas Tu MV


I like the dance so much too! G-friend is very synchronised in their every move that I think of them as female version of Infinite. Dance moves are very powerful in Me Gustas Tu for this song of innocent concept, and look at how fast the members move across a distance. It's really an upbeat song.

Me Gustas Tu MV dance version


Then I checked out their live performance on various music shows. On the first few stages, I wasn't really satisfied with their stage outfit on the first few shows which I name it one of the worst stage outfit in history ever (source). Talk about firing their fashion coordinator....

You can check out by searching Me Gustas Tu plus either of Music Bank, Music Core, Simply K-pop, Inkigayo, M! Countdown but I'm showing one of the stage here.

Me Gustas Tu live performance at KBS Music Bank (comeback stage, 24th July 2015)


Since the song got popular it's good time to look for people covering the song. Me Gustas Tu is really easy to follow, trust me.

I like this Spanish cover! This is the best one ever!!!



Waveya will always add their sexiness into their dance moves.



I discovered East2West dancing to Me Gustas Tu through suggestions. Look at how the two guys learned the dance so well! Guys can dance to girls' moves!



K-Tiger's Taekwondo version is super impressive that you can't afford to miss it.



This is the bomb! In one of the live performances, slippery stage caused the main singer to fall down up to 6 times on stage. This incident went viral, got reported on international media and also propelled G-friend to another level of fame. Also, thumbs up for the level of professionalism!

Yuju (main singer) fell down repeatedly during performance


The incoming show host for MBC Show! Music Core has chosen to perform this too! G-friend must be so proud to know this. I've replayed this a few times because they rocked the song and also very adorable.




Me Gustas Tu has grown so much on me since its release around July, and I never get tired of it. It's my song of the year, really!

Revisiting Red Alert 2, the classical RTS game I used to play

Some time last week, I spotted my brother playing Red Alert 2 on his gaming rig. So I joined in the fun and watched him play. After that, I played a few games myself with understandings of military tactics I've never tried before. With the new strategy, I managed to finish an easy enemy in around 20 minutes in skirmish mode. Now that's an achievement for me!

I saw the game for the first time watching my uncle playing it in his house. Immediately, I got hooked. The adrenaline rush was simply addicting. Then I bought gaming CD to playing by myself. I was a total beginner back then when I couldn't handle a brutal enemy.

You know, how I miss this game! With my old playing style, it took me hours to secure my base and finish off the computer controlled opponent. I was more fascinated with abilities of units instead of using strategy to win games. When studies took over, my interest in the game died down. A few years later, I revisited the game after gaining some new understandings from my studies and other interests.

I wasn't a big fan of playing missions but friends told me that is the core of the game. I started to appreciate missions in Red Alert 2 after I understood the beauty of storyline in movies/games. I didn't go back to actually playing the missions but there's Youtube, so I watched the playthrough videos from players instead.

If you haven't know about this game, here's a short intro. There are two playable factions in Red Alert 2, which are the Allies (all Western countries plus South Korea) and Soviet (Russia and other communist states). The expansion, Yuri's Revenge, has Allied, Soviet and Yuri as playable factions.


Screenshot of Red Alert 2. Image source

To really understand what the game is all about, it helps to have a good grasp of history and international politics. Real history says that we had World War 2, followed by the Cold War which was the division between capitalist and communist blocs. In the alternate timeline of Red Alert universe, after the real World War 2, Albert Einstein traveled back in time to erase Adolf Hitler from time. Without the rise of Nazi Germany, Russia (Soviets) grew so much in power. This led to the Great World War 2 (Red Alert 1) and Great World War 3 (Red Alert 2). After the end of Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge, some Soviet officers went back in time to erase Albert Einstein from history. So there was no invention of atomic bomb and no bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. And you guess what? By the time the Soviet officers returned to their time, Japan grew so much in power as the Empire of The Rising Sun thus setting the events for Red Alert 3.

Why do you want to play Red Alert 2? It was certainly one of the success of real time strategy (RTS) games. While the actual gameplay forms the core of the experience, the narrative of the game is another driving force behind this game. The narrative of the game is what sets the stage for missions and puts the gameplay in context.

There are indeed some extra stuff I've found, and they are of interest.

The making of Red Alert 2. You can meet the actors who portrayed the characters in the cutscenes.



Watch how Udo Kier, a German actor, is transformed into Yuri in the game. Yuri is a psychic who can mind control enemy units.





Another screenshot of the game. Image source

Red Alert 2 is named one of the best real time strategy and military tactic game in history. It's time to move on and I'm excited to see better games in store!

10 Facts About Diabetes I Learnt From My Research

It has been one year since I started my PhD project in diabetes! I was a total novice back then when my graduate advisor introduced me into the area of diabetes, barely getting my hands on the basic knowledge. I was reading about the molecular mechanism of diabetes treatment, and my knowledge of diabetes was only skin deep. PhD is not a rosy journey - there were a lot of disappointments and stress to meet requirements!

After a year, I couldn't describe in words, how much I have gained in my knowledge and understanding of diabetes! When we discuss about diabetes, the first thing that come to mind is high blood sugar and sweet urine, right? In actual fact, diabetes is a complex disease. I have done a lot of readings for my research, so let me tell you what I've learnt from it.

Of course, what I'm writing below is not substitute for medical advice from qualified practitioners.


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Diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease found together is actually a syndrome
I have always heard of people with heart attacks who is also affected by diabetes, high blood pressure, high blood lipids and a host of other conditions. Well, are these people affected by separate diseases? From the surface the answer seems to be yes. But in fact they are affected by one syndrome. Putting it more exactly, they are affected by the metabolic syndrome. A syndrome means a set of signs and symptoms that are 'friends'(correlated) of each other. There is one cause (something wrong with the person's bodily metabolism) and the diseases are manifestations of the syndrome.

Diabetes is a silent killer
Type 2 Diabetes often have no sign and symptom. It's already too late when patients have had a heart attack, and find out about diabetes! I haven't mention having diabetes also increases your chances of having heart attacks. Don't get caught by a nasty surprise, that's why body check up is important!

Diabetes affects how body handles fat and cholesterol
Medical science tells us that metabolism of sugar and fats are commonly controlled (regulated), and I know for a fact that insulin also controls fat metabolism. Cutting the long story short, I can tell you that patients with diabetes have abnormal cholesterol level that make them prone to heart attacks (a term I called it atherogenic dyslipidemia). Many treatment options for diabetes focus on controlling blood sugar, but I can tell you: watch out for your cholesterol level too!

Besides Type 1 and Type 2, there are many more types of diabetes
I am sure many are familiar about Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes taught in textbooks, right or not? There are in fact, many more types and causes of diabetes. There's gestational diabetes or Type 3 diabetes that affects pregnant women. There is diabetes with a genetic causes. There is diabetes caused by medication and viral infection. Taking detailed medical history and correctly diagnosing the cause of diabetes is so important now!


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Diabetes affects blood vessels, and hence blood pressure
The state of high blood sugar and reduced insulin sensitivity can affect the function of endothelium, cells that line the inside of your blood vessels. Endothelium controls relaxation and contraction of blood vessels by sensing blood flow and secreting factors to vascular smooth muscles. When endothelium is less able to relax blood vessels due to diabetes, you'll have high blood pressure.

Fat tissue secretes hormones that controls energy metabolism
The fat tissues or known as adipose tissues are popularly thought to be fat stores. It turned out that adipose tissues secrete leptin and adiponectin, important hormones that control your appetite and insulin sensitivity. Some anti-diabetic drugs make use of fat tissue for their effect, in fact.

There are three major insulin sensitive organs, failure in one of them affects your whole body
Muscles, fat tissues and liver are organs that respond to insulin. What happens when only one of them fails? Using special methods to make one organ non responsive to insulin, scientists have been able to show that diabetes and heart attacks ensues. The actual diabetic case of course involves all organs.

Obesity carries a high risk of Type 2 Diabetes, but being skinny is not good news either
It's not hard to think that being overweight/obese increases risk of Type 2 diabetes. What about skinny people? Using mice that are not able to form adipose tissues (lipodystrophic mice), scientist also showed that they are not insulin sensitive and diabetic. So, fat tissues aren't just fat stores!

Anti-inflammatory drugs can alleviate diabetes
Consuming anti-inflammatory drugs to treat diabetes sounds very crazy, but experiments showed that it works! One thing doctors are not telling you: obese people are in a state of low grade inflammation because the fat store in their abdomen is infiltrated by immune cells and the fat cells secrete hormones that lead to inflammation. What's more, being in a state of inflammation affects insulin sensitivity, because these inflammatory hormones interferes with insulin response at the molecular level. So, the tale of anti-inflammatory drugs can improve diabetes actually makes a lot of sense.

Fatty liver is a complication of diabetes
You've probably not learnt this in textbooks. People with diabetes have a high chance of being affected by non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (the medical term is hepatic steatosis). Over time, this may lead to fatty inflammation of the liver (steatohepatitis) and scarring (cirrhosis).

Last but not least, my take home message:

Don't drink too much Coke!


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The shocking truth I discovered about Christmas

It's the Christmas and holiday season. What are you doing?

Did the title surprise you? For most of you, it may offend you because of long rooted tradition. But if you take the time to listen, you can gain something! If you're here, I congratulate you! You'll hear of the actual thing about the origin of Christmas celebration. Let's continue with an open mind, and then make up your mind shall we?

I did research on Judaism to know about the true roots of Christianity with an unassuming mind, and one question was of course the celebration of Jesus' birth. I've discovered about this for quite some time, and I decided to share it with you now.

Since I was a kid, I was taught that Christmas is a religious festival celebrated by the Christians and Jesus was born on this day. The entire world is tricked into believing this. I'd give you a pass for saying Christmas is celebrated by Christians (mainstream knowledge), but when it comes to advanced level, the actual facts say otherwise.

The word "Christmas" doesn't appear in the Bible. There isn't a command to celebrate Jesus' birthday in the New Testament portion of the Bible. By Biblical evidence, Jesus wasn't actually born on December 25. There's a guess for the approximate time about Jesus' birthdate (link), but the exact date isn't known until today. Furthermore, early Christians had no problem about not having Jesus' actual birthdate and didn't celebrate Christmas.

Furthermore, Jesus also stated that his followers should place more emphasis on following his teachings rather than praising the mother who raised him. In other words, he asked us to focus more on pleasing God rather than honouring human beings.

How it all began? It all began with Babylon. Christian pastors have always preached about being under the Babylonian system. Babylon as an ancient civilization is long gone, what they mean to say "under the Babylonian system" is the system of false worship that still plagues us today. To explain about Babylon is a topic of another blog post, but let's focus on Christmas this time.

So, what's the true origin of Christmas?

The plain fact is, Christmas has a pagan origin. Pagan worship predates Christ for a long time, and one of the cult is the worship of the Sun God. There are many cult worship of the Sun, and Rome has the reputation to absorb pagan practices throughout the empire. During the reign of Emperor Aurelian, he built a massive temple of Unconquerable Sun and set the god's birthday at December 25. Another thing is, the Romans also celebrated the holiday of Saturnalia from December 17-25 with the custom of lawlessness during the week. One of the custom was "singing from house to house naked" - sounds eerily similar to Christmas carol! Which one is the true origin, I am not exactly clear.

So, when Emperor Constantine declared Christianity as state religion of Rome, paganism was still at its height. Instead of wiping out the practice of paganism or asking pagan Roman to change their practice, he had the pagan practices adopted by Christianity (populist approach). The Church appropriated the practice and thus born Christmas! Much better than traditional pagan practices :)

So, you can see how powerful Rome was, to the extend that it affects our practices today.

The true origin of Christmas tree

This is a bit hard to answer. The answer for no goes like this: Tree worship is a pagan practice. A Babylonian fable told that from a dead tree stump, came forth an evergreen tree - symbolises the dead Nimrod come to life! This custom spread to other pagan civilizations but all can be traced back to Nimrod. The Romans had a custom of decorating their fir trees with berries during Saturnalia.

But another source says, Germans and Scandinavian residents put up evergreen trees to signify their hope for the upcoming spring during the Middle Ages. The first Christmas tree was decorated by Protestants in the 16th century. There is no spiritual significance in having or not having Christmas trees.

The true origin of Santa Claus

Santa Claus is a corrupted form of the name St. Nicholas. Nicholas was the most senior member of Council of Nicaea, from which came forth the New Testament

Through time Nicholas was idolized and became a cult. In 1931, the Coca-Cola Corporation contracted Swedish commercial artist Haddon Sundblom to create a coke-drinking Santa. Sundblom modeled his Santa on his friend Lou Prentice for his cheerful and chubby face. The corporation insisted that Santa’s fur-trimmed suit be bright, Coca Cola red. Thus born Santa Claus: a blend of Christian crusader, pagan god, and commercial idol, very popular among the children today.

Does the Bible mention about customs of celebrating Christmas?

Absolutely not! The Bible mention not about remembering when was Jesus' birthday. Celebrating Christmas is more of a man made institution.

Conclusion

The custom of Christmas celebration actually comes from pagan practices. The celebrations we have today is a mix of true Christianity and paganism. Over time, Christmas becomes a festival for commercial purposes.

After you've read my post, you have this knowledge. What can you do? Go with the flow. Use this opportunity to be charitable on Christmas day. But remember to tell your children the truth when they grow up.

Either to celebrate Christmas or not, it's a personal choice. Let not condemn anyone for celebrating or not celebrating and make it a joyous occasion! If you choose to go strictly Biblical and not observe it, it's your choice too.

Further readings:
The True Origin of Christmas - this is easy to read, and provides a good overview
Pagan Roots? 5 Surprising Facts About Christmas - also quite easy to read
Simple to Remember - The History of Christmas
Jesus is Savior - The Plain Truth about Christmas
Hope of Israel - The Shocking Pagan Origin of CHRISTMAS!
Why Do We Have Christmas Trees?