Sun-bong Choi is the Korean version of Susan Boyle.

He is the street urchin who made good.

You can read the article in Time.

He has an operatic voice to be sure.

And he was a bit of a set-up since he attended the Korean equivalent of Julliard whilst the audience is given to believe he is a homeless urchin wandering the urban streets in search of a mommy.

But Susan Boyle was also a bit of a set up since you do not just show up on these 'contests' without being screened in the first place.

He's not the first one to be swept up in controversy, either. It was revealed later that Paul Potts had taken a master class with the legend himself Pavarotti, and Susan Boyle had also trained and recorded for a charity CD before her appearance on Britain's Got Talent.

I have no idea what kind of access the judges have to screening tapes. But the producers of these 'reality shows' only permit the worst singers/actors/athletes to reach the stage when the purpose of the presentation is satirical (read cynical) in nature.

And as the purpose of movie producers is to create further wealth for any cinematic presentation by availing themselves of all media forms; great wealth is manufactured in these contests through recording contracts for the winners.

Everything is planned. Somebody is going to win! Win, place or show I should say; since the top three contestants will receive recording contracts and be scheduled for stages throughout the globe.

I have learned to not trust anything I see or hear on TV unless it is presented in a fictional context.

I assume our current President was never disbarred as an attorney and was never arrested on suspicion of robbing a bank simply because reporters receive a lot of money and fame for breaking those types of stories.

Anyway back to Choi.

What really struck me about the video and the article was that I was once again presented with a parallel universe.

I mean Boyle was on a British stage.

And the set-up for the Korean show was exactly the same.

Everybody is speaking Korean, but the gestures, the crying, the facial expressions, the hand and arm movements, the types of introductory questions, the audience reactions, the clothing, the stage accoutrements...

I mean talk about cloning!

We might not have reached a one world government as of yet; although international corporations act the same here as they would in Korea or Japan or China. Management knows how to bribe and extort and cajole all governments to act in a manner of benefit to corporate theft. Whether that be theft of natural resources, theft of labor and the ultimate theft of our humanity.

And this international corporate model is really turning humanity into a single cultural entity.

There was this silly movie starring Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes entitled Rising Sun.

I will still pick up 20 minutes of the movie when it shows up on cable; just for laughs.

I mean it is literally a laugh a minute even though that was not its intent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_%28film%29

Rising Sun was actually a Crichton novel and as everyone knows he never let go of any of his projects so naturally his name appears on the credits for the screen play.

The point I am attempting to make here (and not very well) is that we are supposed to believe that bowing and backing away from corporate tables and specific expressions are mandatory in order to interact with the Japanese culture.

We are to believe that there still remains cultural diversity on this planet; that there still exist secret idiosyncrasies amongst our various tribes.

George W. Bush held hands and was seen kissing—literally-- the Saudi Prince who was dressed like Lawrence of Arabia. http://www.google.com/search?

And our current President was lambasted for bowing to the Japanese Emperor. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U6fL7Y4BZA

And yet the al Qaeda bastard dressed in traditional Arab garb was telling other traitors living in this country to get their shit together.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfj7OxwDIU4

He was speaking in street lingo and not including 'Praise Allah' as a phrase in every single sentence.

But the al Qaeda bastard's video reminded me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HraQiS9jwo&feature=related

Yasir Arafat, the Incredible Hulk, Liberace and Lonnie Anderson appear on The Merv Griffin Show.

Arafat notes that WKRP is the number one program on Palestinian TV.

Think about it.

There is a process that is world wide in nature.

Chinese businessmen do not wear Mao suits. They wear western suits and ties and pants and shake hands.

Those movies made in Bombay show more and more teenagers wearing their versions of jeans with their shirts hanging out instead of 'native' garb.

This is an interesting phenomenon to me.

I do not think that the new homogeneity will breed world peace or anything that beneficial to humanity.

As a matter of fact these ruckuses in Muslim countries are a direct result of all these technical devices that spread this new corporate generated world culture.

Many millions of folks world-wide will tweet their junks.

Kids will be singing Lady Gaga songs in Botswana.

Beijing households will be viewing reruns of Mannix and Bonanza.

Moscovites will download pirated copies of Hangover XIV.

Danes will refinance their cars following a bad week on internet poker.

Venezuelans will continue in their attempt to block internet porn from their kids' pc's.

Homeless kids in Guatemala will be twittering on older versions of the Brownberry.

Children of devout Roman Catholics in Poland will wear nose rings and sport Mohawks.

This really is a brand new world.

I don't know how brave it is.

In the end we all wish to conform in one manner or another for fear of really being different.

Previous draft @

http://onceuponaparadigm.wordpress.com/2011/06/08/parallel-universes/