Scott Burgeson has published his entire essay on the 2008 beef protests at his website.
{ 18 comments }
President Lee wants to bring Koreans within 90 minutes of one another… and he’ll use high-speed rail to do it:
High-speed rail networks will be expanded to connect major cities, and travel time within 95 percent of Korea will be reduced to two hours or less by 2020, the government announced yesterday.
Korea Train Express (KTX) will run on many more lines, and conventional trains will be enhanced to run at a maximum speed of 250 kilometers per hour (155 miles per hour). KTX will be connected to Incheon International Airport in 2012.
[...]
“Roads have reached their limits, and it’s time to utilize railroads to make the whole country fall into an hour and a half travel zone,” said President Lee Myung-bak in a meeting held at Korea Railroad Research Institute in Uiwang, Gyeonggi. “This will not only create economic advantages but also provide us with a grand strategy to stay competitive for the upcoming era of green growth and to address the issue of climate change.
Hey, they don’t call him “The Bulldozer” for nothing!
As a big fan of railway travel, I find the idea intriguing, but you do have to wonder whether by 2020 there will even a single mountain in Korea without a railroad tunnel running through it.
{ 3 comments }
Didn’t really notice it while it was happening, but boy, did I notice what it left behind when I went to work this morning…
{ 5 comments }
Korea might have been snubbed by “1,000 Places to See Before You Die,” but it did get into Catherine Price‘s new book, “101 Places Not To See Before You Die.”
Funny how Korea keeps making lists like this.
Anyway, Ms. Price apparently didn’t like the DMZ or Korea’s TempleStay program — which rather surprises me, as the DMZ is one of the most surreally beautiful places to which I’ve ever been, and I find the TempleStay program to be a rather remarkable experience (and a generous one, on the part of the Jogye Order). Really, how anyone can bash a morning yebul… or a balu-gongyang… is beyond me. But then again, I’ve never written for “O, The Oprah Magazine”: as “Ed” once pointed out, I’m just a local yokel hiding behind provincial irony.
(HT to Brian, whose post is well worth the read)
{ 23 comments }
Marking the withdrawal of US combat forces from Iraq, Paul Wolfowitz writes in the New York Times that Korea should be a model for Iraq. Actually, this comparison isn’t new — in 2007, I mocked then-US President George W. Bush for making the same comparison. Still, we should hear him out:
The aftermath of another American war is instructive. Fifty-seven years ago, an armistice ended the fighting in Korea — another unpopular conflict, far bloodier than the Iraq war, although shorter. Civilian casualties were horrendous, and the United States and its allies suffered more than half a million military casualties. The South Korean Army took the heaviest losses, but the United States also paid a high price: 33,739 killed or missing in battle and 103,284 wounded.
Gen. Dwight Eisenhower won the 1952 presidential election, in part, on a promise to end the war. According to a poll taken in April 1953, three months before the armistice was signed, 55 percent of the American public thought the war had not been worth fighting, whereas only 36 percent thought that it had.
Yet when the war was over, the United States did not abandon South Korea. We had done so in 1949, when our post-World War II occupation of Korea ended, opening the door to North Korea’s invasion the following year. This time, instead, we kept a substantial military force in South Korea.
The result, of course, is well known — South Korea went from being a basketcase to one of the greatest developmental success stories in the history of man.
Now for Iraq:
Some similar considerations apply to Iraq today. First, Iraq occupies a key position in the Persian Gulf, a strategically important region of the world — a position that is all the more important because of the dangerous ambitions of Iran’s rulers.
Second, whatever the failings of Iraq’s democracy, it bears no comparison to the regime that other hostile elements would impose. With all its imperfections, Iraq today is more democratic than South Korea was at the end of the Korean War, and more democratic than any other country in the Arab Middle East (with the possible exception of Lebanon).
We have withdrawn so many of our troops and relinquished a combat role because Iraqi security forces have been able to take on most of the security burden. Their numbers have grown from about 320,000 in December 2006 to more than 600,000 at the end of last year; they are also becoming more capable.
As what I said in 2007 still applies for the most part, I’m just going to copy and paste to save time:
I’ll grant that there are probably a lot more similarities between Korea and Iraq than anyone cares to admit — like today’s Iraq, South Korea was a complete and utter basketcase between liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945 and 1950. Something resembling a viable state eventually emerged, but that was only after the ruinous Korean War, and Koreans would have to wait all the way up till 1987 before they got a democracy in any meaningful sense for the word. I might even point out some of the ironies, too, like one of the “mistakes” we are criticized for in Iraq — removal of collaborators with the ancien regime (i.e., de-Bathification) — we are being criticized by many modern Korean historians for NOT doing in Korea between 1945 and 1948.
Anyway, might Iraq go the same way as Korea? One can only hope.
One thing I think is fairly certain at this point, however, is that the United States won’t be going along for the ride. A 50-year deployment? Put down the crack pipe — unless internal security in Iraq gets tangibly better real soon, this deployment won’t last one year before the White House is forced to announce a timetable for withdrawal, let alone 50. At least in Korea, internal security (i.e., burning villages, torturing leftists, etc.) was firmly left in the competent hands of the South Korean military and police while the US protected Seoul from external threats. Good luck seeing that anytime soon in Iraq. To talk about anything resembling a long-term deployment of US troops to Iraq at a time when you’re coming under intense pressure from your own public to pull out is, simply put, mad.
Heck, I supported the war, but I think we can admit now that things have not developed in the manner we may have wished, and now there is very little for US troops to do except stand around in the middle of an Arab civil war and get shot at. I’m not even saying Iraq is a lost cause — like Korea, it might eventually turn out fine — but clearly, Iraqis have some, ahem, issues to work out amongst themselves, and US troops have no role to play in resolving those issues.
The other thing is Iran is NOT the Soviet Union. A pain in the ass and possibly a serious nuclear threat? You bet. A superpower with dream of global hegemony, through, it’s not. It was the Soviet threat that elevated South Korea from just-another-Third World-post-colonial-shithole status to vital-national-interest status. Nothing like that threat exists in Iraq, just as nothing resembling the communal cleavages that plague Iraq existed in Korea.
(HT to Ask a Korean)
{ 37 comments }
After personally dealing with the somewhat arcane bureaucratic mess that passes for applying for a trademark in South Korea, I notice now that Koreans themselves have been bitten by their own unwieldy system of trademarking: Pocheon makgeolli, (a famous rice wine brewed in Gyeonggi), became a registered trademark but the name wasn’t registered in Korea, but in Tokyo – at the Japan Patent Office by Japanese!
A good JoongAng article on this is here.
{ 5 comments }
Girls groups are getting younger and more sexually suggestive… and the Hani doesn’t like it one bit:
On the Aug. 26, on an episode of “2010 mNet 20’s Choice,” Hyun Ah from Kpop girl group “4Minute” performed a dance on a chair, wearing black shorts revealing her body. The audience cheered every time she moved her outstretched legs. After the performance, Internet users uploaded photos and left comments, such as, “The thing I noticed first were your lovely legs,” and “Captivating eyes that seduce a man.” Hyun Ah, 18, is currently a senior in high school.
The girl group “GP Basic,” the youngest girl group with an average age of 15, appeared on the music program “Show! Music Core” on Aug. 21.
“I’ve stolen your heart. You’re already mine. Look only at me,” are some of the lyrics of their hit song. The girls are four middle school students and an elementary school student. Looking at the lyric content of their music and their thick makeup, one might confuse them as being much older.
With the growing popularity of girl groups recently, controversy has arisen regarding how much sexual suggestiveness the girls use in their performances. For these girl groups, which include teen-aged girls, miniskirts and short shorts are standard outfits. They also perform provocative dances in see-through clothes that look more like undergarments, and the music programs encourage this behavior. As more criticism from the public arises, television stations are considering more regulations. However, the public is also criticizing the actions of the music programs, which focus on visuals like close-ups of particular body parts.
The Hani then illustrates said evils by posting a photo of Hyeon-a. And her chair.
Anyway, this is as good an opportunity as any to post Girl Generation’s Domino Pizza commercial — I’m sure the Limeys out there will approve:
{ 83 comments }
According to federal prosecutors, former State Department contractor (and fellow Hoya!) Stephen Jin-Woo Kim was a bad little boy:
Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, 43, then a senior adviser for intelligence on detail to the State Department’s arms control compliance bureau, was charged with disclosing national defense information in June 2009 to a national news organization, believed to be Fox News, and lying to the FBI. Kim pleaded not guilty before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.
Although unnamed by the government, Fox News reporter James Rosen wrote a report posted June 11, 2009, saying that U.S. intelligence officials had warned that North Korea planned to respond to a new round of U.N. sanctions with another nuclear test. Rosen reported that the CIA warning was developed through sources inside North Korea.
According to the indictment, Kim disclosed “Top Secret-Sensitive Compartmented Information” that concerned the military capabilities of a foreign nation and intelligence “sources and/or methods,” which “could be used to the injury of the United States.”
My first instincts are to say 1) predicting North Korea would conduct a nuke test after getting hit by sanctions hardly requires secret intel, and 2) holy crap, the CIA has assets in North Korea?
Well, at least Mr. Kim’s lawyers love him:
“In its obsession to clamp down on perfectly appropriate conversations between government employees and the press, the Obama Administration has forgotten that wise foreign policy must be founded on a two-way conversation between government and the public,” said Abbe D. Lowell and Ruth Wedgwood in an August 27 statement (pdf) on the case.
“It is so disappointing that the Justice Department has chosen to stretch the espionage laws to cover ordinary and normal conversations between government officials and the press and, in doing so, destroy the career of a loyal civil servant and brilliant foreign policy analyst,” they said. “There is no allegation that a document was given, that any money changed hands, that any foreign government was involved, or that there was any improper motive in the type of government/media exchanges that happen hundreds of times a day in Washington.”
Well, leaking secret intel to the media is wrong, but this guy doesn’t sound like Robert Kim, either.
More at TPM.
{ 0 comments }
Here’s a heartwarming tale from Ohio:
Strippers dressed in bikinis sunbathe in lawn chairs, their backs turned toward the gray clapboard church where men in ties and women in full-length skirts flock to Sunday morning services.
The strippers, fueled by Cheetos and nicotine, are protesting a fundamental Christian church whose Bible-brandishing congregants have picketed the club where they work. The dancers roll up with signs carrying messages adapted from Scripture, such as “Do unto others as you would have done unto you,” to counter church members who for four years have photographed license plates of patrons and asked them if their mothers and wives know their whereabouts.
The dueling demonstrations play out in central Ohio, where nine miles of cornfields and Amish-buggy crossing signs separate The Fox Hole strip club from New Beginnings Ministries.
Club owner Tommy George met with the preacher and offered to call off his not-quite-nude crew from their three-month-long protest if the church responds in kind. But pastor Bill Dunfee believes that a higher power has tasked him with shutting down the strip club.
Won’t comment on who’s right here. But I will say, judging from the photo, that the strippers in question appear rather, well, natural. And surely, Jesus loves strippers who don’t cut themselves up.
{ 12 comments }
According to the Hankyoreh, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il — no doubt moved by all the photos of old Catholic churches posted on this blog and my photo blog — paid a visit to what I suppose is Jilin Catholic Church. And what’s more, the KCNA actually reported it!
Since officially taking over the family business in 1998, Kim has not even once set foot in a religious facility, either in North Korea or abroad.
A South Korean priest, who asked not to be named, told the Hani that Kim’s dad, late North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, stayed at Jilin Catholic Church for a time when he was a guerrilla fighting the Japanese. The church is over a century old and is frequently visited by tourists and visiting VIPs. It is also possible the church is tied to Kim’s childhood memories, as he and his mother took refuge in Jilin during the Korean War.
According to the Hani, though, what’s important is that a) he visited, and b) the North Korean media reported it. A former high-ranking South Korean official told the Hani that for the outside world and North Korean citizens, this was a big deal, and could be a message pertaining to religious policy, including a readiness to improve North Korea’s relationship with the Church.
Kim’s grandparents were Protestants, so his father had such deep ties with Protestantism that he displayed a friendly attitude towards the religion (NOTE: only the Hani could write that with a straight face), but the Kim family has no direct relationship with Catholicism.
{ 6 comments }
North Korea — yes, the same North Korea that finished second to last in Reporters without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index 2009 (.pdf) and is arguably the world’s biggest Internet black hole — has condemned Seoul for blocking access to Pyongyang’s Twitter page:
South Korea has been “crazy to stop its people from gaining access to video and messages posted on our YouTube and Twitter,” said a statement seen on the North’s website.
“This proves the group of traitors is an anti-unification faction, which does not want (inter-Korean) dialogue and cooperation,” it said, adding the South’s “dirty” move will only aggravate confrontation on the peninsula.
Of course, I think blocking the sites is stupid, too, but still…
{ 1 comment }
Interesting piece on how language may influence the way you look at the world, a interesting phenomenon this blog’s linguistically talented readership will no doubt find interesting and may have experienced themselves.
{ 13 comments }
The KT ran a wonderful opinion piece by Mike Breen on the disaster that has been the confirmation hearings for Lee’s new cabinet. Read it in its entirety: here’s just a sample:
Here’s a round-up: Prime minister candidate, ten-fold increase in personal wealth in last three years as a provincial governor, taking bribes from a businessman; knowledge-economy minister, property speculation by wife; culture and tourism minister, registering false home addresses and buying property in his wife’s name; health and welfare minister, daughter with foreign passport still on Korean health insurance (two crimes); labor minister, fake address and dodging military service; special affairs minister-nominee, using his influence to help a chaebol CEO get reappointed; education minister, evading tax and publishing the same scholastic paper in two journals.
This rap-sheet, the opposition charges, shows that most nominees have “ethical problems.”
OK, opposition, job well done. Ethics is a sharper axe than competence. The actual achievement here, however, is different than the one intended. It is to reinforce for Koreans the widely believed misperception that their leaders, regardless of party, are morally corrupt.
From here, it is but one step to the assumption that we all, too, must cheat to succeed.
For older people, raised when political power here was truly corrupt, that message is so deeply ingrained that for them the distress is not in acting corruptly but in being caught. For the young, however, exposed to the virtues of democracy, the moment of choice, be it the first cheating in an exam or doctoring of a resume, sets them on a lifetime blunting of the moral edge that for most, because of the logic at play ― “everyone does it” ― leads to a justifying dislike of country. This gets reflected in the desire, unusual for a developed country, of so many to emigrate. It also explains why Koreans, especially in business, so often trust expatriates more than their fellow Koreans.
{ 14 comments }
