OhMyNews on expat blogs

by Robert Koehler on February 14, 2007

Song Yul writes on foreigner blogs about Korea (including this one) in OhMyNews. Nice little piece, actually—if you can read Korean, take a look at it. Thanks go out to Song for giving some of us orangkae bloggers some exposure.

{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Corpy Carly February 14, 2007 at 3:20 pm: Antti and GI Korea are the Korea blogosphere’s left and right extremes? Maybe I need to readjust my political prejudices but neither seem to be rapid partisans.
2 Corpy Carly February 14, 2007 at 3:21 pm: *rabid
3 Antti February 14, 2007 at 4:15 pm: Yes, nice to have been noticed, especially as my own blogging activity has been rather low lately.

Corpy Carly, he didn’t quite present us as extremes but merely as examples of politically different viewpoints. And even though I have given attention to leftist politics in ROK, it’s been mostly in a critical tone in hope for improvement of my own liking, I don’t think my blogging has been that leftist – especially as compared to my mate Kotaji. And my attention to small businesskeepers and other self-employed, as a consequence of my research, tends to give room to those people’s views, which surely downplays any leftist tendencies…

And about blogs in general, it is a pity that there is so little interaction between Korean-Koreans and non-Koreans in the non-Korean-language Korea blogosphere. On the contrast, in the perhaps most widely read English-language blog on Finland (http://finlandforthought.net/), the vast majority of the commenters are Finns – the general fluency in English makes the difference.
4 Robert Koehler February 14, 2007 at 4:22 pm: And who’d have thought there was an online Finnish School?
5 GI Korea February 14, 2007 at 4:24 pm: Corpy,

I read that to and I have never thought of my site being the standard bearer of the right in the Korean blogosphere. Most of my posts are on USFK issues or Korean history related. I’m anti-Roh but now a days who isn’t?

It is the same thing with Antti site, he is by no means the standard bearer on the left either. For someone that is supposed to be the right wing standard of the Korean blogosphere I quite enjoy reading Annti’s site and actually wish he would post more.
6 michael February 14, 2007 at 4:48 pm: So in the cartoon politics of the Ohmynews crowd GI Korea + U.S. = “right wing” and Antti + Europe = “leftist”

And Marmot represents the Wall of Jews
7 usinkorea February 14, 2007 at 4:50 pm: I don’t read Antti’s blog everyday like I do here and GI Korea’s.

I can see saying GI and Lost Nomad are conservative. Besides the anti-Roh stuff and the anti-anti-US/USFK stuff that is frequently mentioned at both —– and coupled with the frequent defense of Bush and/or US policies in Korea and Iraq, it isn’t a stretch to say those two or my own blog tends to be conservative.

But, I wouldn’t have labelled Antti as blogging from the left. Like he said in his comments, what jumped into my mind as I read Marmot’s report above was that —- Antti frequently takes the left in Korea to task.

If I had to label someone as being more to the left from the blogs I check out regularly, I’d point to Orankay’s blog. He is more the Yin to the conservative Yang of the blogs I read, but I wouldn’t really consider any of them towards an extreme either right or left.
8 usinkorea February 14, 2007 at 4:51 pm: I thought One Free Korea was the Jew wall…
9 hardyandtiny February 14, 2007 at 5:34 pm: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cheonggyecheon

What were you worried about?
10 CEC32 February 14, 2007 at 6:35 pm: Huh!….if I were still an expat living in Korea, I’d give ‘em a blog to write about.
11 Brendon Carr February 14, 2007 at 6:38 pm: If you’ve left, why not undo the Xanga Lock and let us see the updates?
12 Nomad February 14, 2007 at 7:40 pm: Me? Conservative?
Me? Defend Bush?

And I’m not anti-USFK; I’m anti-stupid, and anti-treating alleged adults like 3-year-old children which results in more off-post incidents.
13 jonallen February 15, 2007 at 12:23 am: I hadn’t heard of the book “Korea Life Blog”.
When I searched for it, it turns out Shawn Matthews commited suicide last year.
http://www.lulu.com/content/84010
14 Sonagi February 15, 2007 at 1:14 am: The OhMyNews article did mention his suicide last year.
15 usinkorea February 15, 2007 at 7:34 am: uh, Nomad, wasn’t it anti-anti-usfk….
16 Nomad February 15, 2007 at 7:36 pm: usinkorea,

You’re right, my apologies. My mind is on other things these days…
17 Jens-Olaf February 16, 2007 at 12:42 am: Shawn Matthews blogs are saved by some friends though photos and comments are partly gone.
the Korea blog:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050205031129/http://korealife.blogspot.com/
his China blog:
http://members.aol.com/shawnschinalife/
18 SomeguyinKorea February 19, 2007 at 10:18 am: Jens,

A friend of mine bought his much blogged about guitar (I’ve played it, actually). It’s now somewhere in Canada.
19 railwaycharm February 19, 2007 at 2:31 pm: Was the final straw ever discovered in this story?
20 Jens-Olaf February 21, 2007 at 1:38 am: This all happened in May 2006. Is it already so long ago? I mean Shawn’s latest posts. The blogosphere is heading for other stuff. I do not want to cope with this. Damn, to start with blogging Shawn was an inspiration for many.
Thanks for reply.