McDonald's Korea said Thursday that Hur Jin will represent the nation in the singing contest where a dozen finalists will compete on April 20 in Orlando.
Around 10,000 McDonald's restaurant employees from 119 countries across the world participated in the preliminary rounds and only 12, including Hur, clinched the tickets to Orlando. The finalists were picked via online votes and in-house judges' evaluations.
Hur plans to sing famous pop singer Alicia Keys' ``No One.'' The champion of the competition will receive $25,000 as well as have the opportunity to perform at various McDonald's events to be held around the world for a full year.
``I had to compete with many people to advance in this contest so I will win the championship and show Koreans' competence to the whole world,'' said Hur, a staff trainer. ``I want to become a vocal trainer and help students who have a dream of performing music like me.''
I got a job at McDonald's in 10th grade, became a crew trainer at 16, and a manager at 17, so I'll probably always feel a soft spot for the place and its activities, even if I don't care for the menu much anymore. You can read more about Hur on her Voice of McDonald's profile; an excerpt:
I am a crew trainer for McDonald's and I sing with my McDonald's crew – we have a band and book a studio once a week to play together. I don’t think I could leave because I love the people I work with. I hope I get to go to Florida to make music and beautiful memories with other McDonald’s crew from around the world.
You can also see her singing part of "Suddenly I See" by K. T. Tunstall, and pictures of her getting the good news. Unlike other Koreans who have become famous for singing American pop songs on YouTube, Hur is actually good.
She's a little marble-mouthed, like when singing "Why the hell it means so much to me," but it's a very good effort. YouTube has videos from other Korean entrants. Four of the thirty semi-finalists were from Korea.
The other eleven Global Finalists this year are from China, Costa Rica, France, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Peru, Philippines, Spain, and two from the US, and they all have profiles on the VOM site. Jin compares well to the other finalists, and her English at least is better than the other non-native speakers, excepting Ms. Portillo from Costa Rica and maybe Ms. Cepello from Spain. Let's see if she can bring the Voice of McDonald's title to Korea, where it belongs. *cough*
3 comments:
Koreans might go nuts if she wins. But yeah, I have developed soft spot for McDonalds too, after owning its stock.
Wasn't a whole lot out about this before, and really not much out now (a few Korean-language articles). I find the Chosun Ilbo's constant "LOOK AT ALL THESE WONDERFUL ETHNIC KOREANS DOING GOOD OVERSEAS" stories tiring, but you'd think with four out of 30 semi-finalists being Korean, they---or TMH's Wangkon---would give it more attention.
I'll vote for her if she can serve me hot fries and burgers that weren't made YESTERDAY. I've never disliked Scottish fast-food more since I had it in Korea.
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