This past Saturday, the Mixr Media family celebrated the holidays at the first Ningin-GirlyBubble Holiday Mixr in New York City!

Our bloggers often work on their own time and far apart, so the Holiday Mixr was a great opportunity for everyone to get together offline. Some of us even met for the first time in person! We shared drinks and karaoke over a yummy Korean dinner of Squid Bokum (spicy!), Budae Jigae and grilled Kalbi. Some of us showed off dance moves straight from the Wonder Girls and BoA. This resulted in some of us getting free dance lessons.
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Tags: 2008, 2009, Alex Shih, Amy Chang, andrew lim, Ani Khashadoorian, bloggers, david hou, david shaw, eddie lebron, Elena Stevenson, erik taylor, Food, holiday, jerry chen, Jessica Dawson, jinra ilustrisimo, KahriAnne Kerr, korean, lan nguyen, Lara Visconti, maimounah masudi, mia lerda, ming min hui, new york city, peter chin, samuel jamier, tara popp, tiffanie lee, Tiffanie Robinson

I started out with the intention of writing the Top 10 Moments of 2008. You just don’t know how much has happened in a year until you sit down and have to write about it. Below are 10 distinctive moments for me in 2008, but trust me, there’s so much more that happened. If your favorite 2008 moment didn’t make the list, don’t be sad. There’s always next year!
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Tags: big bang, BoA, Cho, chuseok, colbert, Edison Chen, G Seoul, j-lim, Jay Chou, jyp, new york city, olympics, rain, Stationmaster Tama, wonder girls, Zhang Ziyi

Today my role was Ningin’s third cameramen during our interview with the Apop superstar, BoA Kwon. I basically just walked around with a Flip video camera taking candid videos of BoA and her staff/entourage to possibly add a behind the scenes type angle if needed. We brought a pretty big crew in total, two photographers, three cameramen, one audio guy, and of course the interviewer, Jeannette Eng. Seeing how this was BoA, we brought in all seasoned professionals including Eddie Lebron, director of the Megaman Movie that we’ve been helping to promote.

I think we were the 5th or 6th interview of the day for BoA having already met with the likes of Seventeen Magazine, Nylon, and others mostly American media sites. By far we were the biggest production crew, though I thought this was standard for someone of BoA’s caliber. I don’t know how many chances I’ll get to spend time with BoA, so I made sure to get squeeze as much as content as I could with the multiple photographers and cameramen.
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Tags: amy cheng, apop, BoA, david hou, eddie lebron, exclusive, interview, jeanette eng, new york city, ningin, peter chin, sm town, umg

BoA makes her American debut on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 in the MTV Times Square Studio in NYC. MTV Iggy, MTV’s new global music and pop culture network, is giving away free tickets to 25 fans who can prove they are most worthy! Email why YOU should get tickets to see BoA live at BoALiveNYC[at]gmail.com and make sure you tell them Ningin.com sent you!

BoA and Ningin to meet in NYC!
That’s right. We’re going to sit down one-on-one with BoA while she’s in New York City. We can’t put into words how excited we are about this!

Got a question to ask her? Send it to us! We’ll pick three questions from Ningin members to ask BoA herself. Private Message (PM) your questions to DavidHou by December 3!

L.A. Show information just confirmed: BoA will be performing at The Jingle Ball Village in L.A. on December 6th. It’s a special Pre-Show Performance of the KIIS FM Jingle Ball. BoA will be performing with Tokio Hotel (Yes, spelt with an “i”). Jingle Ball performers will be Chris Brown, Pussycat Dolls, Katy Perry, Jesse McCartney, Estelle, David Banner, and Menudo. For more info check out KISS FM’s site.

Tags: BoA, Bring On America, Live, los angeles, mtv, new york city, Tokio Hotel

A few weeks ago, Andrew talked about a restaurant called Home’s Kitchen. He highly recommended the place so I made him take me and my boyfriend there.

From beginning to end, the experience was amazing. Not only was the food the best I’ve ever tasted (probably), but the restaurant was the nicest I’ve been to in NYC. They redesign their little hole in the wall awhile ago and now it looks like a five start restaurant.
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Tags: andrew lim, chinese cuisine, Homes Kitchen, new york city

Last week, New York Times bestselling author Dan H. Pink held a fantastic lecture on Manga at Japan Society in New York City. Dan’s writing credits include inspirational-allocutions for Vice President Al Gore and contributions to The New York Times. While at Japan Society, he discussed his Manga epiphany and consequent study of Manga while in Japan.

According to Dan, there are key business lessons to be learned from Japan’s manga industry. Manga occupies a very different role in Japan than comic books do in the US. He goes on to point out that in the US, comics are marketed for teens and Otaku. However in Japan, manga is read by everyone. To affirm just how ubiquitous manga is, Dan tried to see how far he could walk in Tokyo before he encountered any sort of manga. He didn’t make it more than a block. He saw store signs, merchandise, piles of manga at convenience stores, billboards, retail spaces with manga-designed decor, people reading manga on the train, while eating lunch, waiting at bus stops, even while walking.
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Tags: anime, bleach, ComicKet, Comics, Dan Pink, doujinshi, Japan Society, johnny bunko, manga, new york city, Prince of Tennis

Wonder Girls fan in New York City? Well, this Friday October 17th, Swerve and BaseNYC will have an album release party for the Wonder Girls latest release - “The Wonder Years - Trilogy“. At the party you will find autographed CDs, posters, and random other promotional goodies will be given out - all for free. The Wonder Girls will not appear at the event, although there will be a special message from them just for the event. DJ Ko will be the guest DJ at the party. It’s a shame I’m not 21. I’d kill for the autographed CD or even poster. More info about the event is included below.

Location:
Hiro Ballroom at the Maritime Hotel
88 9th Ave.
(Between 16th and 17th Street)
New York City

Dress Code:
Wear your very best, since dress code is strictly monitored. Undershirts, boots, jeans, baggy jeans, or sneakers are not permitted. Groups of gentlemen must be accompanied by women.

Contact:
info@basenyc.com - Reserve your very own V.I.P. area.
guestlist@basenyc.com - $15 guest list ends at 11:30PM / doors open at 10:00 PM

Other Info:
Ages 21 and over. Preferential line treatment will be given to ladies, gentlemen accompanied by them, and table reservations.

Tags: hiro ballroom, jyp, new york city, release party, wonder girls

I tried to depart a little from the traditional martial-arts genre. Instead of treating these characters as heroes, I wanted to see them as ordinary people – at the stage before they became heroes. – Wong Kar-wai

Wong Kar-wai’s restored, re-scored, expanded, recolored and re-edited Ashes of Time Redux premiered tonight at the New York Film Festival. Playing before a sold out crowd at the 1,131-seat Ziegfeld Theatre, Wong Kar-wai was joined on stage afterward for Q&A with the still beautiful actress Brigitte Lin and cinematographer Christopher Doyle.

The acclaimed film has has been digitally colorized from the 1994 print, at times adding beauty to the cinematography, but sometimes too digitally enhanced for some viewers of the original release depending on who you asked at the screening. It seemed everyone was in agreement the subtitles received a nice revision. Regardless, if you’ve only seen this film on DVD, you’re in for a special treat when this story of swordplay and ill fortunes gets a wider theatrical release in the USA on October 10.
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Tags: Ashes of Time, Brigitte Lin, Christopher Doyle, cinema, hong kong, kung fu, Maggie Cheung, martial arts, new york city, New York Film Festival, Sony Pictures Classics, Tony Leung, Wong Kar Wai, Yo-yo Ma

The video of the Wonder Girls interview is up! It took us a bit to get the translation and sound fixed. The interview area was about 10 feet from the stage in a little tent so yea, not much we can do about that.

Thanks again to JYP and his company! Also thanks to the interviewer, Soyoung Ahn, and the translation/subbing team, Mia Lerda, David Hou, and Cho Soo Dong.

Enjoy the interview! In case you missed it, here’s the link to our gallery from this event.
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Tags: 2008, chuseok, exclusive, flushing, interview, jyp, new york city, ningin, So Hee, Sun Mi, Sun Ye, wonder girls, Ye Eun, Yoo Bin

(left to right: Sun Mi, Ye Eun, Yoo Bin, So Hee, Sun Ye)

Wow! Just wow. There’s a lot that happened today but I’ll let the other bloggers take care of putting together a full write up. I just want to lay down some quick thoughts down before getting some much needed sleep and introduce some of the videos and photos we have.
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Tags: chuseok, event, festival, holiday, jyp, korean, miss info, new york city, photos, rebuilding the bridge, wonder girls