The U.S. State Department announced Wednesday that of the roughly 90 nations that have offered assistance to the United States in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Korea’s aid offer is the fourth largest, according to YTN.
Korea’s US$30 million offer was exceeded only by those made by Kuwait (US$100 million in funds, US$400 in petrolium products) and the UAE and Qatar, both of which offered US$100 million.
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So when are medals going to be handed out for first, second, and third…the closing ceremony, I presume?
Iran’s might be second biggest: they’re offering 20 million barrels of oil.
The money is (should be) appreciated. The Korean media is into ranking the country, especially when it puts Korea in a good light. But for pure nationalistic propaganda, check out this gem:
http://english.chosun.com/w21d.....60031.html
The first sentence makes absolutely no sense (”The unique sense of solidarity with their own Koreans display in adversity is once again in evidence…” Huh?) But the real howler is: “Americans, who consider it natural to head to a hotel or evacuation facility when they leave their homes, are surprised by the Korean community bestowing warmth on strangers simply because they are of the same ethnicity. It’s a phenomenon that is hard to find within other ethnic groups in the U.S., they say.” Who did they talk to? It’s a phenomenon that’s easy to find among pretty much every ethnic group in the U.S. In fact, I know many Americans who “bestow warmth” on strangers who are NOT of the same ethnicity, as amazing as that sounds.
It’s great that Korea made a big donation, but spare us the whack sociology.
Is that all??? Korea Herald’s headline on Monday’s frontpage said $30 billion:) Why is it that Koreans can’t count in English?
same reason most of us can’t count in Korean
Knowing the internal procedures of the Herald, and their staff, for lack of a better word, it’s prolly more a typo that got past the “proof-readers” [again using this word loosely]. The pc-banging monkeys ?? and it does seem like there’s a million of them ?? can’t count in any language anyway.
Mongolia is going to send $50.000
Test
Huh, I guess you can’t delete your post on this site once you put it up. Ignore the “test” message above.
Anyways, what I meant to write was, 30 million is a lot of money. I hope they actually use it to help the Katrina victims. Whether it’s Korea or the US, it seems the politicians are all god damn useless.
I think the criticisms here is very mild, compared to the criticisms we would have heard if Korea didn’t send any money. I’ve been seeing the CNN a lot lately. They’ve been showing the scenes of International aid going to America, mostly scenes of the British pitching in. Now they can’t do no wrong. Money alone doesn’t impress anybody, as found out by Japan during the 1990 Gulf War.
ROK troops of more than 3000 is stationed in Iraq to support US’ invasion. ROK donates 30 million dollars to help disaster victims. But nothing on CNN, FOX or whatever. What Korean government should do additionally is to lobby the US media to make ROK more known in the US. Not to propagand with lies, but advertise the facts more. All they see in the US is bad north koreans, bad kim jung il with his WMD. We need more positive exposures of Korea.
hehe…they had a world map of donor countries on CNN yesterday, but some numbnuts failed to put korea on it. seems that cuba’s much more interesting to newscasters there.
CNN announced this morning South Korea’s 30 million dollar donation.
They also covered the Korean deployment of 3000 ROK troops a year after the liberation/invasion of Iraq.
S.Korea can jump up and down and yell “We’re over here!” all she want, but the lack of attention, is that a good thing or a bad thing for S.Korea? Given the anti-American streak, it maybe a good thing from the overall scheme of things.
Is Wal-Mart big enough to count as a country? If so, they are hot on Korea??s tail in the donations game.More than $3 million in merchandise has been donated. As of today, $3 million has been collected in public contributions made directly by customers at our 3,800 Wal-Mart and SAM??S CLUB locations. Wal-Mart has donated $17 million in cash to aid emergency relief efforts:
$15 million to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund
$1 million to the Salvation Army
$1 million to the American Red Cross.
In terms of actual donations given, they may be in the lead.
As much as I hate Wal-Mart I must admit they are doing the right thing and doing it well.
S.Korea can jump up and down and yell ??We??re over here!?? all she want, but the lack of attention, is that a good thing or a bad thing for S.Korea? Given the anti-American streak, it maybe a good thing from the overall scheme of things.That’s nonsense. What Korea needs is a more accurate focus at a wider spectrum of its citizens and their actions and beliefs. The “anti-American streak” appears as such because of sloppy, uninformed reporting about one side of the story. Not reporting on Korea’s contribution is just one symptom of that.
(In the end, though, the aid is about giving, not recgonition, though, but it is rather telling that other countries’ smaller contributions get considerably more press than Korea’s contribution).
When the big earthquake occured in Indonesia last year, the Korean government promised to donate 50 million dollars. But they decreased the amount to 6.1 million dollars this year and have only paid 2.95 million dollars up to now. Let’s see how much money will be paid to America in reality this time.
Got a link for that, Masa?
Financial Tracking Service
Show me how you worked the stats, because I didn’t get that, and I think some others got something different from what you stated.
1.Key Criteria : Donor = Korea, Republic of
Country / Emergency = INDIAN OCEAN - Earthquake/Tsunami - December 2004
2.(continue)
3.Subtotals by : Status
4.Result Sorted By : Description
Wouldn’t that just show the money paid out until the end of December 2004 and not the money pledged to be given later for later clean-up, rebuilding, resettling, etc.? That’s what appeared to be the case when I went to that site earlier (but I’m saying this from memory, so I may be wrong).
guerille-sk says:
“What Korean government should do additionally is to lobby the US media to make ROK more known in the US.”
I guarantee that if ROK was better known in the US, USFK would be gone and that would be just the start.
I wonder why korea cares so much which country ranks first and how Korea will be ranked.
On the one hand, it seems some Korean hate Americans to the bones.
On the other hand, it seems they wants to show to the U.S, how much they contributed to her.
Is this a kind of feelings as in a situation where you must be subodinate to the super power to survive but in your heart you hate to do so?
I don’t get what you are saying. If ROK was better known in the US, USFK would be gone? So what if they are gone? What are you talking about? What I am saying above is that there is no bad in letting people know in America that ROK helps out an ally when they need help. That is a postive exposure, and ROK needs it a lot. But for some reason, the US or the world news doesn’t seem to cover it much when they cover everything possible of the G8 nations.
Also, ROK must learn to defend itself alone, we can’t always depend on the USFK to do the job for us. We have for a long time depended on the USFK so we could grow economically, and we did so very well. Now, it’s time to thank the USFK and take care of it ourselves.
ROK must become a country that can stand on its own and be shown to the world that it’s a well advancing nation and not known as some country in Asia where there was a Korean War 60 years ago, and many GIs died there.
Do you get what I am saying? or do you still not?
Is it really so hard to figure out why a country that was dirt-poor and a “basket case” a matter of decades ago and has worked its collective asses off to rise up from that is so image-conscious, especially when the dominant images about it are so often decades out of date?
And is this just a Korean thing? It seems Canadians have a bit of this in relation to the U.S. So do a lot of European countries, to each other or to the U.S.
About the only countries that don’t do it all that often are places like the U.S., where they already top most of the rankings.
Anyway, rankings and international image are something that have often worked well as a driving force for improving things around here. I have that obsession to thank for the high-speed wireless Internet access I use around town.
I guarantee that if ROK was better known in the US, USFK would be gone and that would be just the start.If vocal anti-American sentiment were the standard for leaving, the U.S. wouldn’t remain in many places, including Okinawa, mainland Japan, and most of Europe.
When I spent a month in Italy last year, I encountered far more vocal and passive anti-American sentiment than I saw in Korea. “Fuck Bush” was a very common graffito.
Jan, Korea doesn’t care so much which country ranks first and how Korea will be ranked. Don’t be saying what some damn newspaper company writes on their column is every Korean’s view. There are all sorts of people with all sorts of different views. It is true that there are people with nationalistic views, but what country doesn’t? Because some young people in Japan speak Japanese with westerner like pronounciation because they don’t like how the original Japanese sound, does it mean everybody in Japan think the same way? Any country you pick, it’s the same. Don’t think Korea is somehow different.
Thanks. I was just curious.
I don’t suppose just because some newspapers write about it, all the people in Korea care about it.And international image is very important. What tweaked my interest was ambivalent attitude toward the U.S.
I thought there might be a general pattern that one nation as a whole exhibit in its behaviors and that you can explain it in view of historical backgroud.It might not be peculiar to Korea only;that is, it might be exhibited in other nations with a similar background. But never mind, I think I need to study more.
May I ask another question?
What is a criteria for a nation to stand on its own?
Which country stands on its own for instance?
Specifically, what do you want people in the world to know about Korea?
I ask this question because I think that korea already stands on its own just like other countries and she is already a advanced nation and she is known in the world pretty well just like other countries.