The Japanese ambassador to Korea also visited LMB to congratulate him. In perhaps a sign of how things will go with Tokyo, Lee expressed hope that Japan would boost investment in Korea.
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34 Comments
Good.
Fantastic! I hope they start burying their centuries-old hatchets, if not only for economic objectives. At least it’s a start.
Just as soon as we can get those bans on Japanese entertainment fully lifted
It is a positive move, but I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. I don’t think that playing on anti-Japanese sentiment for political purposes has been exclusive to the outgoing “progressive” goverment - in fact, it was during the KDJ regime that entertainment/cultural bans started to disappear and the trend has continued up to the present - and LMB will surely try to find a way to use Dokdo, Japanese textbooks, centuries old invasions, and comfort women to his advantage. Playing the anti-Japanese card is too tempting to avoid. It has near-universal appeal across the Korean political spectrum.
I think globalvillage got it right. Shit, even a whack of gyopos who never set foot in and/or weren’t even raised in Korea hate the Japanese for what they did to their country.
The anti-Japanese, anti-American, anti-China, anti-English teacher, anti-white/dark skinned guy and anti-foreigner cards are way too useful to let go of.
Most useful of all these is the anti-Japanese card. It’s like a wild card.
He better pray he gets it too. At a recent expo in HK, all the westerners were laughing out loud at all the usual Korean govt sponsored suspects touting all the same shopworn Hubba Hubba development schemes to have foreigners provide the development expertise and shoulder all the financial risk while their DKRP (Designated Korean Rentier Partner)® gets to skim the profits
According to my Economist magazine The World in 2008 yearbook (p. 105), Goldman Sachs recently named the Republic of Korea as one of the “N11″ — the “next 11″ countries nipping at the heels of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) as investment opportunities. In other words, not opportunities now.
Korea’s illustrious peers in the N11? Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Turkey, and Vietnam.
Nice going, guys! The fruit of Kim Dae Jung’s post-2000 backsliding, and five years of Roh Moo-hyun’s duplicitous warfare against foreign investors, is Korea’s new club membership rubbing shoulders not with the OECD markets but with a rogues’ gallery of corrupt investment shitholes.
I still think you’re too cynical, though, Sperwer.
Korea has worked its way into the same league as Nigeria and Bangladesh, you say, and you think I’m too cynical? Keep it up and like the new knucklehead in South Africa you’ll be taking post-coital showers as an AIDS preventive. Do you take postdated checks?
Wait, the showers don’t work? Next you’ll be telling me the “administrative guidance” from the National Tax Service is unreliable.
Sperwer,
An honourable man, especially someone from a great country such as America, wouldn’t live for a prolonged period in a country to which he has no emotional attachment.
Hatred and contempt are emotions, you know.
Assuming for the purpose of argument that The Expat™ is filled with hatred and contempt for Korean society, one must consider that the baseline emotional position of the foreigner not yet exposed to Korea is generally neutral to favorable.
I wonder how such feelings of hatred and contempt could develop, and whose fault it might be?
I blame Japan. Or “misunderstanding”.
HonoUrable Barbarian:
Is a felony conviction still a prerequisite for entry where you are? Is that how you got in?
Anyway, I’m just honorable, and my emotional connections are none of your phony supercilious fucking business.
Indeed, many of us have remarkably complex multi-colored emotional attachments to this peculiar country, be we honorable or not…
Judge not.
No no no… You have it backwards. It’s the people with pre-existing hatred and contempt for South Korea who end up living there. So that they can, umm… feel that hatred and contempt up close. After all, don’t you know anything? Apparently, expats are all either open or closet racists, anyhow.
#11. It’s not how you feel, but how you react to your new feeling that matters.
#12. If you’re an honourable man, then behave like one. Anybody can say it.
I guess in your book, especially considering your earlier comments, that means cut and run; I would have expected better from an Aussie.
I have strong opinions about some things in Korea. They are influenced, but not determined by how I feel about certain things. I apply a sort of Wordsworthian formula - strong reactions (not necessarily emotional one) later slowly thought over at ease and explored through study of and reflection on the subject at hand. Given the propensity of many Koreans to ignore the elephants in their historical foyer and contemporary living room, and the combination of crass self-interest and Stockholm syndrome that afflicts many expats, both short and long-term, it’s also a bit of a project to which I’ve committed on the side; after years of studying Korea and living and doing business here, it seems to me both worthy and worthwhile to post a few signposts warning others away, and even to try to dissuade Koreans, from drinking the local kool-aid. In some fora, like this one, I deliberately choose to express myself in an studiedly intemperate and provocative fashion, because it seems to me to be a reasonable rhetorical strategy in the circumstances, e.g, the level of ambient noise.
If you were really the sort of person that you pretend to be, you’d be able to recognize that, or at any rate appreciate the perils of trying to limn someone’s “feelings” from a few sentences on a page. In any event, a truly honourable person doesn’t issue the sort of admonition the authority for which you presumptuously arrogate to yourself. But I suspect that you’re just a third rate Dr. Phil., so please keep your psycho-babble to yourself or try out for walk-on to Oprah. In any event, have the good sense and good manners not to presume that you have any insight into, let alone, know what my feelings are.
None of your comments shows you’re an honourable man.
You went all the way from America to Korea as an investment immigrant and studied the country and did business there for years and then tell others to stay away by posting “ signposts warning others away”, rather than pack your bag and go back to home country? It shows your true character.
Well, I have gone through more than just “a few sentences on a page”. And it’s not very difficult to read what you think and feel as you tend to use strong languages anyhow. If you’re trying to suggest your true feelings are different from what your comments imply, that would be a deception. Whether you express “in an studiedly intemperate and provocative fashion”, or whatever else way you write, it’s the reflection of your thoughts and feelings.
Anonymous commenter babarian has pronounced you a dishonorable man, Sperwer. It’s time for some serious self-reflection.
Yeah, well I’d call him/her out - isn’t that what one does in such a circumstance - jingeum would be my choice - but, since it’s not even willing to engage rhetorically on real issues, I suspect I’m dealing with a coward, so what’s the point, eh?
I am trying to figure out if babarian is a Korean going after commentators who are critical of Korea or someone who simply enjoys bothering other people.
BTW, I wouldn’t put too much meaning in the Aussie flag. I’m at my home and the flag next to my id is showing the Aussie flag and not the Korean flag.
Thanks, Mins; I’m not losing any sleep over it, and I’ve consigned him/her to the virtual bin.
Oh, don’t do that, Sperwer. I like to think of our unofficial VANKers as catnip-stuffed toy mice, batted around and chewed on for amusement.
But I prefer to think of them as old shoes:
http://pets.webshots.com/photo.....vhost=pets
mins, good to see you cavort with two of the worst expats korea has to offer.
****
who’a responsible for your hatred? well, you are, of course.
pawi, good to see you drop by and spew out your hatred.
And who’s responsible for your hatred? You’re of course. Unless you are going to follow the path of every Korean nationalist and blame the Japanese, or someone else other than yourself, for that matter.
And I like the gisaengs in the avatar. It suits your image a lot better than Kim Myung-min as Adm. Lee Sun-shin.
“Assuming for the purpose of argument that The Expat™ is filled with hatred and contempt for Korean society, one must consider that the baseline emotional position of the foreigner not yet exposed to Korea is generally neutral to favorable.”
Of course, The Korean™ is filled with hatred and contempt for non-Koreans, at least according to quite a number of people here.
Hypocrisy reeks in here.
But as we know from their own admissions, Koreans are generally extremely hostile to The Other, who is defined as “not me.” Perhaps you’ve heard of the Korean’s segmentation of all things in this world into two categories (我 · 非我 - “me and mine” and “not me or mine”). I can’t believe you’ve not previously heard accounts of xenophobia and chauvinism in Korea. Perhaps we’ve all made them up.
“Not me” includes nearly all foreigners, but also includes a large number of Koreans in its daily usage. Only when “Me” gets craftily twisted by some demagogue to be “We” (as in “Us Koreans”) does the foreigner find himself without Korean company in the “not me” category. In my opinion, the minute some leader starts up with “We” one ought to look very carefully to find the benefit for the speaker’s “Me”.
The Western worldview is more nuanced, particularly that of the American, especially folks from the American Midwest. Our worldview has at least three categories: “Me and mine”, “You and yours”, and “Not mine and not yours but belonging to some other, including the possibility of belonging to all of us”. Actually, if you want to think about it, more categories are possible but these are the basics.
The English/American view is one that enables the preservation of public space for things like parks — we respect the common good. But the Korean bipolar worldview does not really posit the possibility of respect for the common good. The Korean worldview is win/lose — if you win, I must necessarily have lost. Thus I must exert all efforts to prevent your win.
Foreign observers who can understand the bipolar worldview will get 95% of what they need to know about Korea from that one concept.
I was going to let this pass, but I won’t.
bumfromkorea, welcome to the club.
You will be told you are WRONG. You will be told that Sonagi is wonderful and kids are lucky to have her.
Sprewer will be proclaimed to be right and You, wrong.
May I say “we” at this point? “we” will be called racists, stupids, trolls, etc.
Mr. Carr, you do have some valid observation points, and this one in particular I don’t find much fault with.
Koreans among themselves will do everything they can so the Kim famly 1 will outdo Kim family 2.
What amuses me is fact that most Kims, Parks, and Lees aren’t really what they claim to be. I’ll end it at that.
Sonagi and Sprewer have some rocks in their heads.
i did travel to a new time zone, but the flag is wrong.
‘The Western worldview is more nuanced, particularly that of the American, especially folks from the American Midwest…’
maybe, but your wife’s korean. your kids are half korean. i hope your moral comapss will somehow wash onto them.
‘An honourable man, especially someone from a great country such as America, wouldn’t live for a prolonged period in a country to which he has no emotional attachment.’ barbarian
about 7 months ago, i wrote a piece about the 4th class white guy who had to go asia to find a date because he couldn’t find one here. therein, you’ll find the answer to what motivates so many a expat to tolerate living amongst a people he despises.
‘Korean’s segmentation of all things in this world into two categories (我 · 非我 - “me and mine” and “not me or mine”). I can’t believe you’ve not previously heard accounts….’
‘300,000 koreans volunteer to help clean up oil spill.’ headline
‘………….’ headline in us re the number of volunteers to the recent sf oil spill.
Who says it’s a moral compass? I’m just noting the difference in worldview. But to be frank, I hope my kids do absorb something other than the zero-sum game, because I’d like them to be adapted to and successful in the wider world.
You’re probably right about that one. (Set aside for a moment the “4th class” nonsense, which begs the question why Asian males immigrate to the United States, where they famously can’t find a date.) Once we’ve got a family connection here a lot of life gets easier. But also, generally that family connection is made before The Expat™ gets fed up. By that point it’s too late.
Merry Christmas to you, sir.