In case you haven’t heard yet, Joshua, James Na and Richardson have come together to form The Korea Liberator. All three were great individual bloggers, so their collaborative project promises to be a goodie.
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8 Comments
for those tired of k blogs that just bash and bash and bash, forget this site as it’s just another place where yet another set of whiney expats can bash away. preacher singing to choir indeed.
First of all, thank you, ex-Marmot, for the plug about our joint site.
Secondly, I’d like to correct some misconceptions “pawkirogi” has.
1. We are not “whiney expats.” I, for one, was born and raised in the Republic of Korea. Korean was my first language. All three of us have families in the ROK and care deeply about their well-being as well as that of the entire peninsula.
2. We are not about “bashing.” What we offer instead is constructive — if pointed, at times — criticism of the ROK government, policies and social trends.
Because we care deeply about Korea, we offer our criticism in an effort to make it a better place for all Koreans as well as non-Korean residents. If we didn’t care about the place and its people, we simply wouldn’t spend the time doing what we have done.
3. We should also note that we are all American nationals, and as such our views are guided by American national interests. We believe that a free, unified Korea with a representative form of government is in the best interest of both the Korean people and the American policy in the region. One purpose of our site is to point out and promote ideas and policies that would achieve that outcome.
Lastly, as human beings, we are fallible. We find something funnier than we should. We sometimes get angry or short with people whom we find frustrating. At times, we are simply wrong.
The best way to deal with that is to engage us, comment on our posts (constructively and in a civil fashion!) and convince us that we are wrong. As open-minded human beings we welcome that exchange of ideas.
Well spoken! Kudos on your site!
What happened to the other two posts that were here a few hours ago?
I think they have been removed by the Roh Administration’s sensitivity censors.
No, just a small database issue. Working to correct it.
At least three comments, I think: the usual one-liner from Slim and two rambling comments from me. Here’s another rambling comment to sum up the last two:
I just wrote that this new blog looks promising. The English-language Korean current affairs blogging community is a niche market—to say the least!—and it’s good to see a new blog in town.
There are a number of excellent blogs in this area, but most of them seem to have only a few regular readers or commenters, or are not frequently updated. Anyhow, most of these sites’ regular readership seems to comprise a small subset of the overall ELKCAB (English-language Korean current affairs blogging) community.
In my mind, the Marmot’s Hole—er, From the Nakdong to the Yalu—has been the only game in town—pace all the other excellent sites—in being the one blog that seems to be read, referenced, and commented on across a wide spectrum—or multiple subsets, if you will—of this niche audience.
Joshua’s One Free Korea was always one of the best non-news sites for up-to-date, in-depth coverage of developments on the Korean Peninsula. (I didn’t really keep up with Messrs. Na and Richardson’s blogs, so I can’t say.) In pooling their resources, these three gentleman have the potential to make Korea Liberator another “blog of record” (to adapt a newspaper term).
Anyhow, with regards to Pawikirogi’s comment, from what I’ve seen of them, none of those three bloggers could in any way be characterized as a “whiney expat” Korea-basher. They all offer intelligent, constructive analyses and critiques of Korean politics.
At the risk of being disappeared for negativity about pawi/nulji, I’ll try to sound positive:
Could the operators of a new blog on Korea DREAM of a better start than a mischaracterization and thumbs down from the leading K-troll? Others should be so lucky.