The whole story was a little weird in the first place. It just got weirder. There actually appears to be some history behind it and the story is a bit more complex then one would think off hand.

It turns out that Tak Kyung-hyun’s Japanese name is Fumihiro Mitsuyama and he’s the subject of a Japanese documentary and two Japanese movies. The people at Japan Probe wrote about him almost a year ago here. He was the main character in the 2001 film titled “Hotaru” (Firefly) and was the basis of another character for the recent Kamikaze movie “Ore wa, kimi no tame ni koso shini ni iku” (For Those We Love) which was, get this, based on a novel written by controversial and ultra-nationalistic Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara. The same site also has a youtube of the documentary.

Truly strange. Excuse me while cognitive dissonance sets it.

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Sure, its politics are crap, but damn, the fight scenes are dope.

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A group of Korean-American housewives have released a statement opposing the full opening of the Korean market to US beef, reports the Kyunghyang Shinmun.

The group, called in Korean the “Korean-American Housewives Group Demanding Renegotiation of Beef Imports,” refuted point-by-point a May 7 statement by another Korean-American group supporting US beef. The group said it felt regret and fury over how some Korean-American are claiming US beef is safe. They expressed concern that the views of some Korean-American groups were being mistakenly conveyed as representative of all Korean-Americans.

The housewives said in their statement that even in the United States, insecurity about and distrust of US beef was growing. They noted that this year, there was a beef recall after a slaughterhouse illegally slaughtered a cow showing signs of Mad Cow Disease and distributed the meat all over the country, including to school cafeteria. They also cited another beef recall in Kansas last month.

The statement said the United States did not sufficiently inspect the safety of its beef; with less than 1% of US beef undergoing inspection for Mad Cow Disease, nobody could guarantee its safety.

Incidentally, one Korean-American housewife called up MBC’s “100 Minute Debate” last night to say much the same.

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Check out Mike Breen’s take on the students demonstrating against US beef. Quite funny, and ultimately asks some intriguing questions. Here’s a sample:

I must confess my first thought upon being confronted with protestors last Friday night and on reading the subsequent coverage was to link their rather ill thought-through cause to other historical moments of popular stupidity, such as when people used the rails of the first train track between Seoul and Incheon as a cooling pillow in summer, with predictably distressing results.

But that would be unkind. Sarcasm will not help liberate Korea’s youth from the peculiar education that robs them of both their childhood and their faculty for critical thinking.

Read the rest on your own.

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Also in the JoongAng Ilbo, it appears the kiddies are taking full part in the anti-US beef festivities, with university, high school and middle school students taking part in signature campaigns and candlelight protests against the evil mi (美) chinso.

The JoongAng — no doubt saving it for later use against the Korean Teachers Union — cherrypicked some comments made by one high school senior at yesterday’s protest at the Cheonggyecheon. Getting up on stage, the student said, “Has the United States taken everything from us? It seems North Korea’s Kim Jong-il is greater. Wouldn’t it be better to stand up to the United States like North Korea?” He also said, “‘Doing it our own way.’ Doesn’t that sound nice?”

Well, I guess it does sound kind of nice — if there’s one problem North Korea doesn’t have, it’s excess imported US beef laying around.

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The JoongAng Ilbo reports that Hallim University Medical School dean Kim Yong-seon, whose thesis claiming that Koreans were particularly at risk of contracting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease sparked the whole US beef import uproar, has told friends that media reports have exaggerated his findings, and politicians are misusing them for political gain.

Hallim University Director Yun Dae-won, who is with Kim on business in Finland, told reporters that the professor was quite embarrassed by the mess. Yun said he was speaking for Kim because the latter felt if he did the talking, he’d become an even bigger victim and perhaps be unable to return to Korea.

Kim appeared with Yun during the interview.

Earlier, Kim’s secretary said his boss felt insulted because some of his thesis had been exaggerated by the press.

Yun said the real problem at the heart of the uproar against US beef was not the facts contained in Kim’s thesis, but rather that those facts were being politically manipulated. He said Koreans were currently not making a rational judgment.

He stressed that Kim’s thesis was very specialized, so even other scholars would have a tough time analyzing it haphazardly. He said it was very dangerous to interpret Kim’s findings arbitrarily. In particular, Yun expressed concern about focusing the discussing on US beef. He said this appeared to be political; the real problem was European beef. He noted that only three cows in the United States had been infected with Mad Cow disease, and all three were infected outside the United States.

Then the kicker — Yun said Kim has enjoyed and continues to enjoy eating US beef, both when he was researching Mad Cow Disease in the United States and now. Given this, Yun said, you could probably guess what the professor personally thought about US beef.

As to why Kim did not actively promote his findings, Yun said that since the controversy over US beef erupted, several angry people had visited his home and thrown animal shit at it.

Yun added that as a result of this mess, Kim has begun showing symptoms a nervous breakdown. The two plan to return to Korea after visiting another European university.

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A 41-year-old cattle farmer in Hampyeong killed himself after attempting to beat his Filipino wife and three children to death with a farm implement.

And leave it to the Hankyoreh to connect it with US beef imports.

(HT to Western Confucian)

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In this editorial on the controversy over US beef imports and the recent related MBC program, the editorial staff at the Chosun put the danger of contracting vCJD into perspective:

미국 쇠고기 반대운동을 벌이는 세력들의 거짓과 논리적 모순과 위선(僞善)은 한두 가지가 아니다. 우리 국민 1000만 명 가까이가 매년 광우병이 위험하다는 미국과 유럽 일본 지역에 태연히 관광 여행을 다녀오고 있다. 광우병 부풀리기를 한 사람들과 그 부풀리기에 올라탄 사람들도 그 대열에 끼어 맛있게 햄버거와 스테이크를 먹고 왔다. 지금 쇠고기 재협상 주장을 펴고 있는 민주당 등 야당의원들도 국정 감사차 뉴욕에 가선 유엔 한국 대사관저에서 미국산 쇠고기를 원료로 마련한 갈비와 육개장을 맛있게 들었다. 이 많은 미국 쇠고기 수입 반대론자 가운데 미국이나 유럽에 유학 가 있는 자녀들에게 ‘쇠고기를 먹지 말라’고 신신당부했다는 사람이 있었다는 소식은 여태 한번도 없다. 자기 자식들에겐 광우병 위험이 있는 쇠고기를 먹이면서도 다른 국민들에게만은 먹이지 않겠다면서 쇠고기 수입반대운동에 팔을 걷어붙인 대한민국 위선자들을 어떻게 받아들여야 할 것인가.

The hypocrisy, logical inconsistencies, and false appeals to authority that have launched the opposition movement against the import of US beef have no value. Every year up to 10 million Koreans head overseas to the US, Europe, Japan, and other regions where the dangers of Mad Cow lurk. Not one person savoring a hamburger or a steak has contracted the disease. The same MDP and opposition party members who dined on galbi and yukkaejang made from US beef at the Korean UN mission now stand together with Korean beef producers. We have not heard of any of these US beef import opposition activists warning their children heading overseas to study in the US or Europe to avoid eating beef. How can we accept that while their own kids risk eating beef which may harbor Mad Cow, these hypocrites march around in demonstrations to keep other citizens from eating US beef?

In the comment thread, some posters have chided the Chosun Ilbo for flipflopping on the issue, citing links to recent stories on the dangers of Mad Cow.

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The FTA is doomed.

The man, the myth, the Marmot’s Hole favorite, Kang Ki-kab is on the case (Yonhap):

“The first, second and the third goals should all be enhancing the public livelihood by solving economic polarization and protecting the lives of the underprivileged,” Kang said. “It is critical to block the FTA for that very purpose, and I plan to take my best shot at it.”

He specifically has a beef (sorry about the pun) with the recent agreement to lift the import ban on US beef.

Kang is not a man to be messed with. He is the current holder of the General Assembly record for hunger striking; a mind-bending 29 days (see the Yonhap link above). This is the same guy who travels Seattle, Hong Kong and Cancun to do his bit of ‘direct action.’

It’s over folks.

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10,000 Koreans showed up at the Chonggyechon last night to hold a candlelight rally against the importation of US beef. (Image below from the KT)

On a side note, an online movement to gain signatures for the impeachment of LMB has so far gained 600,000 signatures, while his popularity rating has dropped to 35.1 percent.

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