18 COMMUNITY TUESDAY JUNE 16, 2009

KOREAN CURATOR
Expat Living is a section dedicated to the daily
living of expatriates.
It is printed on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.
To share stories about your life abroad, send stories
or story ideas to Matthew Lamers at
mattlamers@heraldm.com
Submissions may be edited for length or clarity.

By Rob Mcgovern
LIVERPOOL, England — In
October 2007 Dr. Lee Sook-
kyung was hailed as one of the
world’s new art pioneers by
British Sunday newspaper the
Observer. The Seoul native has
been curator of exhibitions and
displays at TATE Liverpool
since October 2007 and is one
of the very few experts on
Korean art in the United
Kingdom.
Lee first arrived in Britain
more than 10 years ago to work
on a masters degree at City
University in London, support-
ed in her studies by her then-
employer the National Museum
of Contemporary Art in Seoul.
Her first encounter with Britain
was to turn into a long standing
relationship. After her initial
year in the United Kingdom,
she returned to Seoul, putting
on an exhibition based on her
time in Britain. The show was
called Distinctive Elements and
was the first major museum ex-
hibition of British art in Korea.
It caused quite a stir in the in-
ternational art community but
Lee admits it may have been
“too early for Korea.”
As far as settling into a new
culture, Lee was fortunate be-
cause she had a working knowl-
edge of English, making the
transition easier. “Because I
was working as well (in) educa-
tion, I learned to read and write
and my actual conversation
skills were okay. It was okay for
working with foreign artists but
because in Korea we are usually
taught American English, It
took me about three or four
months to get used to the
British accent, which sounded
more like German to me.”
Even after living in England
for more than 10 years, she still
finds the regional diversity of
British accents a challenge.
“Particularly the Liverpool ac-
cent. I lived near London when I
first came, but when I came to
Liverpool, it was like another lan-
guage. I still look at waitresses
sometimes and wonder what
they just said.
“The accent is one thing but I
quite like Liverpool as a city be-
cause the people are different
from London people. They are
more open and they’re quite
friendly in a more traditional
way. It’s a bit less formal and I
find it more welcoming. Overall
my experience has been very
good.”
Being an internationally rec-
ognized curator, however, does
not mean you do not have to
deal with mundane, everyday
tasks that being a resident calls
for. “When you try to settle in a
place you find quite different,
things that you don’t necessari-
ly find as a tourist or visitor.
The whole culture of writing
letters, setting up bank ac-
counts and dealing with utility
companies, they are practical
difficulties.”
Lee can see the positive side
IN LIVERPOOL
to a system that seems rigid, in-
flexible and quite different from
Korea. “The system is very well
defined in the U.K. and it is
easy to follow once you know the
system and how it works. In
Korea it seems more informal.”
The Korean community in
Liverpool is very small and as
such Korean restaurants are al-
most nonexistent. Korean expa-
triates in need of spicy comfort
find themselves either having to
try and recreate their mother’s
food at home or making a long
trip to London to pay for expen-
sive and often unauthentic food.
“Liverpool is quite good because
there is a big Chinese communi-
ty and so the grocery stores
have lots of ingredients.
“I do try to have Korean food
regularly, it’s quite healthy and
I do cook at home; I often make
bibimbap. I like to eat out too,
but the Korean food is not as au-
thentic as I expected. There are
more restaurants now that sell
things like tteokbokki and
ramyeon, as well as high-end
barbecue restaurants, especially
in London. Unfortunately they
don’t really compare with home
because you can’t have the table
full of food. London is a bit ex-
pensive and I go to Koreatown
in New York when I am there,
which is cheaper and more like
Korea.”
Besides food, friends are the
other home comfort that Lee
misses most. “None of my school
friends are here, obviously, and
people need that comfort, really
old friends, girlfriends to talk to.
I usually spend most of my time
with family and friends when I
go back to Korea, which I try to
do once a year. I did go back
three times last year but all for
work and even when I go back
for a holiday it isn’t at a specific
time, just whenever I can take
time off work.”
As a veteran expat Lee offers
some advice for other Koreans
going abroad. “Be flexible about
your own virtues and pre-exist-
ing thoughts about certain
things. Be as open as possible
and don’t be fixed in your think-
ing, look at other cultures as dif-
ferent and not better or worse. I
see that a lot in Korean people.
They can be very unfriendly
about other cultures. Be open
about things and be objective
about what you experience and
don’t try to over generalize. Your
experience is your experience.”
And on the reverse side, Lee
has some advice for people mov-
ing to Korea or already living
here. “Trust what Korean peo-
ple say and do. They are very di-
rect and really show what their
intentions are. Be very direct
and deal with people and situa-
tions as directly as you can. You
may feel uncomfortable being
confrontational, but once you go
beyond that first confrontation,
people are very friendly.”
Lee seems to have settled in
Liverpool for the time being and
is enjoying her tenure at TATE;
she has bought a home and has
admitted that she now refers to
her family home in Seoul as her
parents’ home. Being an inter-
national curator and working at
the top end of the business, she
is open about where the future
might take her. “I will probably
stay in Liverpool for the next
few years but I don’t know what
is next. It will probably be relat-
ed to work.”
Lee is the co-curator of a coop-
erative exhibition called “Colour
Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950
to Today,” on display in Liverpool
from May 29 to Sept. 13. For
more information about this ex-
hibition or Tate Liverpool visit
their website www.tate.org.uk
(robguv@gmail.com)
On the Web
www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
exhibitions/colourchart
www.creative-choices.
co.uk/server.php?
show=ConWebDoc.2643
www.cige-bj.com/en/event1.html

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

In focus: To edit Re: Going abroad
By Lee In-wha in the United Kingdom, as it

or not to edit? I went to a boarding school

The Photo Challenge is spon-
sored by Hyosung Camera
(English: 010-7203-9599) and
Babo Shirts (www.baboshirts.
com). Winners of the weekly com-
petition receive a 50,000 won
store credit at Hyosung Camera
and a Babo Shirt. To take part in
the competition, simply upload
your photo at
www.flickr.com/groups/seoulph
otoclub — Ed.
By Aaron Raisey
Do you post-process your im-
ages on the computer using an
image-editing program? Or do
you prefer to let your talent and
creativity stand as the photo
comes out of the camera? It’s a
question that excites opinions on
both sides of the fence, and one
PHOTO CHALLENGE winner — Walking the dogs with a camera at that we’ll try to get a balanced
6:30 a.m. brings photographic rewards. Nicolette Oliver handle on this week.
The first thing to understand
is that every image has been
processed, it’s just a matter of to
what degree. From a photo-
graphic perspective, there is no
such thing as a “natural” or “un-
altered” image — the moment
you hit the shutter, different
levels of, for example, contrast,
saturation and sharpening are
all applied in-camera according
to factory presets or user de-
fined parameters.
Even film is processed, of
course, yielding different results
depending on where and how it
is processed, and it also has to
be scanned — another form of
PHOTO CHALLENGE runner up — A cat on the streets of Osan, processing leading to various
Gyeonggi Province. Len Payne outcomes — before being view-
able online. Some photogra-
phers proudly proclaim that
they never “process” their im-
ages on the computer. We can
now see that this is patent non-
sense.
Images do get processed, be it
with the camera’s software, or
using different chemicals and
then via the scanning software.
It’s a matter of how much pro-
cessing has been done and how
much control you have had over
it.
Having said that, you should
become familiar with your cam-
era, exposure, light and color,
depth of field, composition and
how all these things interact
and combine to produce an im-
age.
The goal should be to get that
image out of your camera in the
best possible shape. I know I al-
ways feel a sense of satisfaction
when I have to do a minimum of
post-camera processing to
achieve the vision I have for a
particular image.
However, sometimes your vi-
sion for an image goes beyond
what you can achieve in-cam-
era, and sometimes a consider-
able amount of work in an im-
age-editing program becomes
necessary.
A great example of this is low
available light (very low light
with no flash) photography.
Noise (grain) can be removed
and exposure and color satura-
tion can be increased dramati-
cally by using high quality im-
age processing software, pro-
ducing results that are other-
wise unobtainable. Quality
black and white images from
digital shots are likewise only
obtainable via post-processing.
I’ve touched on the idea of
cropping several times in this
column, and I’ll do so once
again.
The goal should be to get the
perfect composition before you hit
that shutter, but until we’ve
achieved that zen-like status, a
bit of cropping can’t hurt.
Actually, cropping images in the
computer to create better compo-
sitions is a great way to improve
your ability to compose effective-
ly through the viewfinder. You
learn what to look for and how
the elements in the frame inter-
act by moving that frame around
after the fact.
The point is that you ab-
solutely cannot get an image
you have captured with a cam-
era in front of anyone without it
being processed somewhere,
somehow, along the line, so
there is absolutely no shame at
all in indulging in and admit-
ting a bit of “Photoshop.”
For some great pointers with
regards to composition and pro-
cessing from some of the best
and most helpful expat photog-
raphers in Korea, check out the
Seoul Photo Club on Flickr.
(raisey@hanmail.net)
in the United Kingdom for
three years, and these three
years became a very impor-
tant period in my life. English
society is very diverse; it con-
tains Indians, Chinese, Black
and of course, English people
as well as many more ethnic-
ities. Despite having a di-
verse amount of races mixed
into their society, there rarely
seems to be discrimination
against each race. When it’s a
holiday for a particular race,
for example, Rosh Hashanah
or Diwali (Divali), they are all
respected for their belief, and
are allowed to celebrate on a
major scale.
After living in this type of
society, the prejudices I used
to have about other races dis-
appeared and I began to re-
spect other people’s beliefs,
regardless of what they be-
lieve in. By contrast, in Korea
the single-race society is still
viewed proudly by many, and
seeing foreigners in the
streets of Korea is a rare
sight.
Additionally, English peo-
ple do not care much about
what we do to ourselves, for
example, about we do to our
hair, what we wear, and other
things. In Korea, we often get
left out by people if we do not
follow the current trend or do
what is considered “right.”
In spite of the fact that the
United Kingdom might
sound like a perfect place for
everyone to live, it has some
defects, as does everything. It
is quite inconvenient to live
requires reservations for
things such as calling main-
tenance. When I planned to
get my braces in England, I
had to wait for a few months
just to get my teeth checked.
After this, I also had to wait
about a year, during which I
came back to Korea and got
braces after a week. This tells
us the difference between
how fast the service is and
how convenient Korea is com-
pared to other Western coun-
tries.
Because I was in England
when I was quite young, I be-
gan to feel that I was losing
my identity as a Korean,
while I wasn’t totally English.
As the time I spent in the
United Kingdom increased,
my Korean skills decreased
noticeably, while my English
skill enhanced. Rather than
viewing England as a foreign
country, it felt more to me like
a second home after Korea. If
I didn’t come back from
England, and continued to
live and go to St. Helen’s
School, I might have been in a
great tumult about which
country I really belong to.
Living abroad may seem
like a perfect life, but it is not.
Living in Korea, as well as
living abroad, both have ad-
vantages and disadvantages.
Living abroad in countries
such as the United Kingdom
teaches us to respect others,
regardless of ethnicity. On
the other hand, living in
Korea is very convenient
compared to living abroad,
and we are able to retain our
identity.