Author: GIKorea

This year will be a longer than normal Chuseok season for Koreans:

President Yoon Suk Yeol (3rd from L) speaks during a regular meeting on the economy and public livelihood issues at the presidential office in Seoul on Aug. 31, 2023. (Yonhap)

President Yoon Suk Yeol said Thursday the government will designate Oct. 2 a temporary holiday to create a six-day extended break from Chuseok and help boost domestic tourism and the economy.

Yoon made the remark while presiding over a regular meeting on the economy and public livelihood issues, saying the government will also distribute 600,000 hotel discount coupons and waive expressway tolls during the holiday period.

This year’s Chuseok fall harvest holiday will run from Sept. 28 to Oct. 1, which means the temporary holiday will be a bridge to Oct. 3 National Foundation Day, another public holiday.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

It will be interesting to see how hard the Democratic Party of Korea fights this move:

The Korea Military Academy said Thursday it will remove the bust of revered independence fighter Hong Beom-do from its grounds following a heated debate over the defense ministry’s push for the relocation.

The decision came as the ministry has recently been considering relocating the busts of Hong from the academy and its headquarters, both in Seoul, citing his past record of collaborating with Soviet communist forces.

“By considering the academy’s identity and honoring (Hong) as an independence fighter, the bust of General Hong Beom-do will be relocated to an appropriate location outside the academy, where his independence movement achievements can be well displayed,” the academy said in a statement.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is a horrible murder over in Gimhae:

A man was arrested on Tuesday after a failed attempt to take his own life after killing his two children.

Gimhae Jungbu Police Station announced Tuesday that a man in his 50s is being investigated on charges of murdering his two children on a hill in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province.

According to the police, the man is suspected of murdering his two children — his 17-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son — in his vehicle.

The daughter’s teacher reported the teenager’s absence from school, and the police found the man at the crime scene at 12:20 p.m. the previous day by tracking the location of his mobile phone. They arrested him at 3:07 p.m.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

It seems eating dog meat is close to being eradicated in South Korea as it is. In the past twenty years it has become hard to even find restaurants that serve it:

First lady Kim Keon Hee said she would work with animal activists until the dog meat industry was eradicated in Korea, continuing her campaign to promote awareness of animal rights.

“We all know how we came forward today with a heart filled with sadness and urgency. Here, all of you are giving everything to save these small lives, but there are animals out there dying so cruelly and unbearably that it’s truly hard to watch,” she said as she appeared at a press conference held by local animal rights activists on Wednesday.

“I will become friends with these individuals and work tirelessly until the consumption of dog meat is banned. I promise,” she said.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Just another example of how COVID has become normalized:

As South Korea reclassifies COVID-19 to the same category as the seasonal flu starting Thursday, coronavirus tests will still be available, but will no longer be free of charge to everyone, health authorities said Wednesday.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency has announced that COVID-19 will go down from class 2 to class 4, the lowest infectious disease category, bringing changes to state policies that have provided COVID-19 testing for free and discounted medical benefits for more than three years.

Prior to the planned reclassification, the government covered the complete expense of the rapid antigen test for individuals with symptoms at local clinics. People only paid a medical examination fee for doctors ranging from 4,000 won to 6,000 won ($3-4.5). However, after COVID-19’s reclassification to class 4, most people — with the exception of high-risk individuals — must pay for the entire cost of the RAT, ranging from 20,000 won to 50,000 won per test from Thursday.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Like it has done just about every August in recent memory, the North Koreans are continuing their offensive on the fish in the East Sea:

North Korea has fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea, South Korea’s military said Thursday, in apparent protest against combined South Korea-U.S. military drills.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the launches from an area in or around Sunan in Pyongyang between around 11:40 p.m. and 11:50 p.m. Wednesday.

The missiles each flew some 360 kilometers before splashing into the waters, the JCS said, with the allies’ intelligence authorities conducting further analysis.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.