Catharina Lee of Washington D.C. was one of the ten girls competing to become a Victoria Secret runway model, but she was eliminated from the Victoria’s Secret Boot Camp competition because she was nervous and couldn’t nail the sitting down pose.  She was seen on Tuesday night on CBS as they showed the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, which interlaced scenes from the Boot Camp competition.  It was pretty cool that a first generation Korean-American girl competed in such a high profile event.  What’s with Koreans modeling lately?  There’s been a couple of Korean-American contestants on America’s Next Top Model and now Victoria’s Secret.

Catharina is a first generation Korean-American who was raised in a very traditional Korean home in Washington, D.C. Her strict upbringing brought out her “bad girl” when she was younger, but at 20, she’s moved past her rebellious ways and is focusing on her future. She’s currently studying Communications at George Mason University. These days, the 5-foot-9-inch former-rebel would rather act out on the runway. According to Catharina, she can easily beat out her competition. Will the other aspiring Angels prove her wrong?

Victoria’s Secret held open casting events in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles and Chicago to give the country’s most beautiful women a chance to be the next Victoria’s Secret Runway Angel. Starting with 10 finalists staying in The District, a luxury condo building in the heart of Manhattan’s financial district, the girls are competing in a series of challenges to prove their abilities as a spokesmodel and show off their red carpet star quality while walking a runway in lingerie.

What an interesting week with our face to face interview with Asian sensation RAIN and a week of Korean women triumphing and being dismissed.  The most exciting hour was Friday evening with RAIN and James McTeigue, the director of Ninja Assassin.  We were one of the very first people to speak with RAIN on his press tour to promote the upcoming release of Ninja Assassin.  He was very nice and genuinely happy to see us when we first entered the room.  We didn’t know what to expect because you read so much about how huge he is in Asia and you wonder what he’s like.  He was actually very social, talkative and very comfortable in his own skin.  He clearly does not lack confidence, even with the difficult task of having to speak English for a long line of interviews.  What was most interesting was that he followed us out to the waiting room and essentially chilled with us while we packed up our gear.  It seemed like he wanted to chat more and it wouldn’t be a surprise because he was probably exhausted from speaking English during the interviews.  He just wanted to hang with his Korean-American homeys.

What a week of Korean women!

So which Koreans were on TV this week? There were four Korean women to one Korean man. Anthony Kim was seen on NBC this weekend, winning the Kiwi Challenge down in New Zealand. It was actually a tape delay from the previous week. But this was the week of Korean women with two Korean athletes winning their respective competitions. Kim Yu Na won the Skate America championship in Lake Placid, which may presage a gold medal at the upcoming Olympics in Vancouver. Michelle Wie won her very first LPGA tournament down in Mexico against stiff competition at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Guadalajara, Mexico. However, for Korean beauties, it wasn’t such a great week with two ladies competing in separate model competitions losing out before the end. Catharina Lee was a finalist for the Victoria Secret runway model competition before going home when they whittled it down to the final five. And Jennifer An almost made it to the very end on America’s Next Top Model but was sent home as well. It’s pretty cool that we’ve Korean women are beautiful, athletic and ambitious. You go girl!