The Winter Olympics have officially ended and the big story for Koreans around the world was Kim Yu Na’s gold medal winning performance in ladies’ figure skating.  She broke the scoring record by holding nothing back in the free skate and in the end, she won the hearts of millions as she finally let tears flow.  She was one of the great stories of the winter Olympics, having arrived in Vancouver with the highest of expectations and the weight of South Korea to win its first medal in figure skating.  She performed to perfection and walks away from Vancouver knowing that she executed perfectly and lifted a nation.  There have been thousands of articles written about her performance and you all witnessed her breathtaking performance, so we leave you with not just one thought but many thoughts and visuals of Kim Yu Na.  Enjoy!

There was one Korean-American on the U.S. olympic team and he medaled in the 5,000 meter relay for the short track speed skating team.  Simon Cho, an 18 year old speed skater, won the bronze medal with fellow relay members Apolo Ohno, J.R. Celski, and Jordan Malone.

Cho was born in Seoul, South Korea, and began speedskating at age 3 – thanks to a father who saw a son with energy that needed to be channeled.

The family moved to Chicago before settling in Maryland in 2000. Eventually, he hooked up with the current national team coach, Jimmy Jang. Cho moved to Salt Lake City in 2007 – by himself.

“When I first moved to Salt Lake, I was excited,” Cho said. “I was young, I was 15 years old, and I enjoyed being away from home. It was definitely a new realm for me, and I felt like I’d grown up, living on my own. Which wasn’t the case. I thought I’d grown up, but I still had a lot of growing up to do.”

Eventually, Cho’s intense, win-oriented over-training caught up with him. His love for skating was exhausted. But discussions with prominent national team members Shani Davis and Ohno early in 2009 encouraged him to relieve the pressure and free himself to chart a new course.

“Once I was able to regain my passion and love for the sport, skating became really simple,” Cho said. “When I went out there, it was just the simplicity of me loving what I love to do. I lost sight of that in the past.”

His Bio from the NBCOlympics.com
Simon Cho is making his Olympic debut in Vancouver, skating in the 500m. The youngest member of the U.S. team at age 18, Cho earned his spot by winning a 500m race at U.S. Olympic trials. The win came when a fortuitous collision between leaders Apolo Ohno and J.R. Celski allowed Cho to cross the line first. Cho had not expected to make the team heading into trials and was planning to quit the sport after the meet. “It was such a huge surprise,” he said. “My mind wouldn’t wrap around it.”

Sticking with it
Cho wanted to quit skating in January 2009, unhappy with his results from that season, calling it “a complete failure.” Cho said he was overtrained, and exhausted mentally and physically. But after talking to friends and family, he decided to continue training through Olympic trials, but with the knowledge that he had to tone down his training. “I’ve learned to take steps to prevent doing that again,” he said. “Just listening to my body more and not ignoring the signs that it’s giving me.” He now plans to continue skating even after Vancouver.

Keeping pace
Just two seasons ago, Cho was serving as the “training rabbit” for the women’s team. His job was to pace the girls, going faster than they could but just enough so they could stay near him. “When I lead I don’t go 100 percent,” he said. “I kind of have to gauge myself so that I would go fast enough so that the girls could barely keep up but not slow enough that they weren’t working hard.” Though not a glamorous job, it was Cho’s way of getting to train with the national team. After one season of that, Cho qualified for his first World Cup team in 2006-07, and no longer had to be the rabbit. “Occasionally I still lead for the girls,” he said. “I think it’s good for me and the girls.”

On the move
Cho was born in Seoul, South Korea, where he first started skating at age 3. His father, Jay, noticed that his son had a lot of energy and thought skating would be a good way to release it. The family moved to Chicago when Cho was 5, and he stuck with the sport, skating at several local clubs before moving to Maryland in 2000. National team coach Jimmy Jang joined Cho’s Maryland club as a coach in 2001, and Jang still coaches Cho, now in Salt Lake City. Cho moved to Salt Lake in 2007, and after a few years on his own, Cho’s family recently moved there as well. Now in his junior year of high school, he is taking time off to train and compete in Vancouver, with plans to continue next year.

Family ties
Most of Cho’s family still lives in Korea, where he travels frequently for competitions and training but has never returend with his family for vacation. Every year there is a World Cup stop in South Korea, and he has spent summers there training as well. Cho speaks Korean at home, though he says he’s more comfortable with English.

Grace Park has been cast for the new television remake of “Hawaii Five-O.”  Grace Park will play Kono Kalakaua, the neice of Detective Chin Ho Kelly – a role filled by LOST actor Daniel Dae Kim.  According to Hollywood Reporter, Kono is a “beautiful and smart champion surfer who is about to graduate from the police academy when McGarrett recruits her to join his team.”  It’s good to see the beautiful Grace Park back on television.  She had a great stint on Battlestar Galactica where she built a great following.

Our own Irene Kim was featured recently on the popular blog “I Am Korean American.”  It’s a website dedicated to showcasing a diversity of Korean Americans.  Each day they profile someone like yourself, and Irene was one of the lucky ones.  Do you know Irene?  What 5 words describe Irene?

5 words to describe me: Loud, Sassy, Sarcastic, Optimistic, Fun
Nicknames: Non-Stop and Asian Fury

Irene Kim is our resident makeup artist and beauty expert.  There’s a reason why Fashion Week calls on her.  Click here to see Irene’s profile at I am Korean American.

http://irenekimmakeup.com
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http://twitter.com/irenekimmakeup

Chan Ho Park is now in Yankee’s spring training but he actually wanted to remain a Philadelphia Phillie.  He made interesting comments on his first day in Yankee’s camp.

Since the Wonder Girls are such a popular topic on Korean Beacon and have made history by being the first Korean pop group to make it big in the U.S., I will be showing you how to do a makeup look based on their hit video “Nobody”. The look is very Sixties style~ The Eyes are the standouts here.

I tried to do a quick and informative video that you could use minimal products to get a whole new look.  I used the Too Faced Natural Eye Palette to create the look.  I love this palette because you can do sooo many different things and create a ton of looks with this one kit.  I find that most Asians like a natural look, so this is a great kit to use for an everyday look, but can also be used to create many different dramatic looks.

The Too Faced Natural Eye Palette contains:

• 3 Large Eye Shadows (Heaven- A light Nude Matte, Silk Teddy- A Pinkish/Champagne Shimmer, Nude Beach- A Champagne Shimmer w/ Gold Flecks)
• 3 Medium Toned Eye Shadows (Velvet Rolver- A Taupe Matte, Push-Up- A Coppery Shimmer, Honey Pot- A Gold Shimmer)
• 3 Dark Toned Eye Shadows (Sexpresso- A Dark Brown Matte, Erotica- A Grayish Brown w/ Hints of Gold Shimmer, Cocoa Puff- A Reddish Brown w/ Hints of Gold Shimmer)

You can use the Eye Shadows in so many different ways. There are three cards that gives you directions to create a Day, Classic, and Fashion look.  You can also use the Heaven as a base for other eye shadows, the Silk Teddy and Nude Beach as Highlighters on the Cheeks, and the Velvet Revolver for Contouring.

If I were to recommend one Eye Shadow Kit for everyone, this is it.  It’ll last you forever, It’s a good price, convenient, So easy to use, and is a great all in one kit.

If you’d rather read or get more details on the look, you can go to: http://irenekimmakeup.blogspot.com/2010/02/wondergirls-nobody-inspired-makeup-too.html

So get yourself one of these kits and try out my “Wonder Girls Inspired Makeup Look” so that everyone will want “Nobody but you!” =)

*~ Have a Beautiful Day!~*

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Admit it. You cried while watching Kim Yu Na skate and we all cried when we saw Kim Yu Na let her emotions go soon as she finished. It was the first time we saw the raw emotions of a 19 year old girl and it was just as beautiful as her performance. Queen Yu Na became a king at the Winter Olympics as she shrugged off the pressure and threw down an incredible performance to win the gold medal in ladies’ figure skating. One of the TV commentators said it best when she said that was one of the greatest performances in Olympic history.

Kim Yu Na destroyed the old record with a world record score of 228.56 and won the gold medal.  Her final overall score, 228.56, was about 10 points better than what Jeremy Abbott, the two-time U.S. national champion, managed here — and would have put her ninth in the men’s Olympic competition.  The men are allowed to do one more jump in their free skates than the ladies — which makes what Kim Yu Na did all the more impressive.

“I still can’t believe the score that I received,” Kim said. “I’m really surprised. It’s almost as close as the men’s score.” “I have accomplished the biggest, most important goal in my life,” she said. “I am going to enjoy this moment for a while.”

Ladies’ figure skating is the crown event and all eyes were on the reigning world champion but pressure and history were against her as the previous three ladies’ figure skating favorites had failed to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics.  Kim Yu Na is special for shrugging that all off of her and just competing like the athlete she really is.  Kim Yu Na was the perfect person to win a gold medal for South Korea.  It’s a country that could be considered chauvinistic with a workforce dominated by men, but it was a female teenager on Thursday night that took South Korea on her shoulders and brought pride to a proud nation.  Of course Korea took pride in their gold medals in speed skating and other sports, but this gold medal lifted a nation.  The last glorious sporting win that captivated South Korea was the World Cup in 2002, and they didn’t even win the world cup.  They reached the semi-finals and took pride in their greatest World Cup performance.  Since then, South Korea has come up short in sports like the World Baseball Classic.  Even this week, there was the disheartening disqualification of the short track speed skating team in the 3,000 meter relay race.  They lost the gold medal after having dominated the event for the last four Olympics.  But this is special…. really special.  A young lady put South Korea on her shoulders and she made them proud.  She is now King Kim Yu Na!  Bravo Yu Na! Bravo!

Check out her gold medal winning performance (video) at NBCOlympics.com.  Also, check out the analysis of Kim Yu Na’s score by the New York Times.

John Park was relieved on Thursday night to find himself still alive and passing through to the first round of American Idol live. He didn’t connect with the judges the night before and it appeared that he was in danger of leaving American Idol, but America called in and voted and John Park got enough votes to live another day on American Idol.

John sat in the back row and when it was his turn. He stood up with the entire row to hear the judge’s comments from the night before. Ray Seacrest said that “all the judges agreed that it didn’t show off his artistry” and “Kara felt it was sleepy and pointless.”  Then Ryan Seacrest took him to the edge of elimination and said “You’re going to have to face them again, so congratulations and take a seat.”

Keep it going John Park, but this time pick a better song that would make Shania sing your praises again.

Access Hollywood thinks that ladies’ figure skater Kim Yu Na is a gold medalist – at least for best fashion on the ice.

It happened again at the Winter Olympics, but this time Apolo Ohno wasn’t involved in the controversy like he was 8 years ago in Salt Lake City. The South Korean woman’s speed skating team thought they had won the 3,000-meter short-track relay, which would have earned South Korea a record fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal in the event. They were so elated that they skated around the rink with the Korean flag waving. However, things became pretty ominous as the judges were watching replays of a critical interaction with a Korean skater and a Chinese skater.  After deliberations, the South Korean team was disqualified for apparently impeding the Chinese skater, and all of the teams behind the Koreans were moved up one spot, including the U.S. team which ended up with the surprise bronze medal.  Officials later said they were disqualified for clicking skates with China just after an exchange with five laps to go. Kim was in the lead when her left skate blade hit the right blade of China’s Sun Linlin. The Chinese team jumped for joy as they stood next to the Korean coach who was being told by the judges of their ruling. Drats! Another disqualification and controversy at the Olympics for the Korean speed skating team.

“I don’t know what the reason is,” said team member Kim Min-Jung. “I don’t have any clue what the referee was saying. It doesn’t make any sense at all.”