Emma Kalka had her first taste of Asian culture when she caught her college roommate watching “Inuyasha” on Adult Swim her sophomore year. From there, she quickly graduated to reading any manga she could get her hands on, watching every anime on TV (and borrowing DVDs from friends), and attending anime conventions to cosplay and meet other “delightfully odd” people like herself.
She met lots of great friends, created wonderful memories and listened to a lot of artists from Johnny's Entertainment during those two years, but after graduating university with a journalism degree in 2007, Emma decided to tackle a new culture and a adventure: South Korea. Why Korea? She still doesn’t know, but she’s definitely glad she went. While watching Kdramas to familiarize herself with the culture and language before moving there to teach English in October 2007, Emma found herself falling in love with Korean pop culture and K-Pop, K-Dramas and K-movies quickly became her new obsession.
Now, nearly two years later, Emma is still living in Seoul, the other city that really doesn’t sleep (where almost everything is open 24 hours), but works on the news team at Arirang TV, where she gets paid to keep up with not only political news and current events, but also follows the news of Korean stars and celebrities. When she’s not working, she’s out with her friends enjoying tasty Korean food, studying Korean, writing about her crazy adventures or watching her friends play in Korean Indie rock shows (her other love).
And also secretly wishing that she would randomly run into T.O.P. from Big Bang while hanging out in Hongdae…
If you want to contact Emma Kalka, e-mail her at Emma@maypang-amin.com
