Category: Korea-General Topics

I feel bad for the family in this case, but I think people do have a legitimate argument that taxpayers shouldn’t be responsible for the medical costs:

Whether the government should financially support an individual who fell from a cliff at the Grand Canyon and is currently in a coma is drawing a mixed reaction.

On Dec. 30, 2018, a 25-year-old man surnamed Park fell off the cliff and was transferred to a hospital. Although he survived physically, he is still unconscious. 

His medical bill at the Flag Staff Medical Center is now over 1 billion won ($ 885,347), and his family wants him to be brought back to Korea, which will cost an additional 200 million won.

“If the duty of citizen is to do their duty to the state, the state’s responsibility is to protect its countrymen, even one,” stated a post written by Park’s uncle on the Cheong Wa Dae website for a petition which has received more than 19,000 signatures. 

However, the post faced a huge backlash with people saying the government should not provide any financial support. 

Korea Times

You can read the rest at the link, but the family is blaming the tour guide for the fall. I have been to the Grand Canyon many times and there are areas without safety fences, however you have to be doing something stupid to fall off the cliff.

A ROK Drop favorite, Robert Neff has an interesting article with historical pictures of Suwon. It is hard to believe that just about a hundred years ago that Suwon looked like this:

Twice, between early October and November 1884, George C. Foulk, an American naval ensign attached to the American legation in Seoul, traveled to Suwon. 

The first time was in an open chair carried by two Korean coolies ― or servants ― and the second was part of his larger exposition to explore the southern half of the Korean Peninsula.

The road between Seoul and Suwon appears to have been kept in good repair and the ever-critical Foulk apparently even complimented the scenery along his path:

“The last four miles of road before Suwon were lined with picturesque old pines and numerous memorial stones. At one place was a resting place and pleasure resort for the King by a small lotus pond.”

Korea Times

You can read the rest of the article about Mr. Foulk’s trip to Suwon at the link.

The KTU is trying to kick native English teachers out of Korean classrooms:

A union of liberal teachers has called on education authorities to remove all ― if not reduce the number of ― native English teachers from elementary schools in Seoul.

According to the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU) Wednesday, its Seoul office representatives will soon meet their counterparts from the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) to discuss the issue.

“There have been opinions that the quality of some native English teachers’ teaching skills is low, which increases Korean teachers’ workload,” a KTU official reportedly said. “They can be replaced by Korean teachers, given that what they teach is elementary level English.”

In April 2018, the SMOE announced measures to improve the quality of English education in public schools. As part of the reform, the office decided to provide native English teachers to all 557 elementary schools in the city.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I am no fan of the KTU which was banned by the prior Park Geun-hye administration due to its anti-Park government and pro-North Korean agenda that led to teacher firings.  ROK Heads may also remember that the KTU has a long history of teaching anti-Americanism in the classroom as well.

With that all said, on this issue I can understand what the KTU is trying to do. If it gets rid of the native-English teachers that opens up hundreds of jobs for Koreans. The kids English education may suffer, but from a union perspective that is probably a low priority to them.

No shocker here:

The thick smog that blanketed most of the country over the weekend was largely from pollutants from China, the JoongAng Ilbo reported exclusively Thursday after analyzing the Korean and Chinese governments’ data on fine dust movements in the atmosphere.

The paper analyzed the Air Quality Index (AQI) in cities and regions in China put out by the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the PM2.5 fine dust levels across Korea put out by the Korean Ministry of Environment’s National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER).

It found that rises and falls in the AQI in China were mirrored in the levels of PM2.5 in the atmosphere over Korea last week.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Moon Jae-in at a press conference: #SouthKorea's "gap btwn the wealthy & the poor and inequality have become the worst in the world." On what basis? Is that what his new head of Korea Statistics said? After all, Moon fired his predecessor for being too accurate. https://t.co/UgXM2G4osr

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) January 11, 2019

Here is the response from the Finance Ministry about the claims of interfering in private companies and politics by a whistleblower:

The current and former finance ministers finally broke their silence over controversial claims by a whistle-blower that the ministry issued deficit-financing bonds unnecessarily and tried to change the CEO of Korea Tobacco & Ginseng (KT&G), a private sector company. 

Current Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said Friday that the whistle-blower, former Finance Ministry employee Shin Jae-min, misunderstood what was going on because he had limited information as a low-level employee. Decisions by his predecessor Kim Dong-yeon would have considered all economic factors, he said, suggesting that political influence or pressure were not part of the picture. 

“When it comes to ‘facts’ there was no outside pressure,” Hong said. 

“[Former Finance Minister] Kim would have made decisions considering the various factors.” 

Hong said while whistle-blower Shin, who was working in the ministry’s treasury bureau, might have had his own thoughts on the issuing of bonds, former Finance Minister Kim had to make decisions with a long-term view with managing the government’s fiscal policy for the next five years.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but the responses really don’t fully dispute the whistleblowers claims.

The former Finance Ministry employee who accused the Moon administration of intentionally raising the national debt has now been taken in custody for supposedly trying to commit suicide:

The former Finance Ministry official who accused the Blue House of fiddling with state coffers and intervening in private companies went missing for hours on Thursday after leaving a suicide note on the internet that read he was going to hang himself in a motel – until police found him alive.

Officers at Gwanak Police Precinct provided scant details to the local press about Shin Jae-min’s health condition but said he was hospitalized in Seoul in a “favorable state.”

Police refused to hold a press briefing detailing how they discovered Shin or what he was doing by the time they arrived at the motel in Gwanak District, southern Seoul, saying they didn’t want to “stimulate” someone who was already “mentally instable.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

Shin allegedly left a suicide note as a web posting on a forum hosted by his alma mater Korea University:

In his post, Shin wrote that he thought people would trust him and his whistle-blowing accusations if he died. 

Shin added he hoped Korean society would adopt a culture that embraces whistle-blowers and reveal how government policies are made to the general public. 

Shin lamented blowing the whistle on a left-leaning government, saying he could have received legal help from Minbyun – Lawyers for a Democratic Society, a non-governmental organization with special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, if he was whistle-blowing on a conservative Blue House. 

Shin said he was “deeply disappointed” after hearing that every attorney in Minbyun refused to defend him if Shin revealed to the press he was being backed by the progressive group. 

I don’t know why he was surprised the Minbyun group would not help him because they are notorious for basically being Kim Jong-un’s lawyers in South Korea. They have been used to legally attack North Korean defectors, one of the groups behind the US beef riots, and have long attacked the USFK relocation plan. They have recently been calling for the signing of a peace treaty to end the Korean War so US troops can be withdrawn.

Minbyun of course are not going to do anything that would damage a North Korean friendly administration in South Korea. Shin best toughen up because the leftists in South Korea know how to defend their own and will do everything they can to destroy him. Just ask the conservative journalists sitting in jail for reporting accurate information about the Moon administration.

This had to be a pretty gruesome death. Condolences to his friends and family:

A Russian worker died after being sucked into an auto parts-making machine, police said Thursday.

The accident happened at a factory in Yesan County, South Chungcheong Province, at 5:13 p.m. Wednesday. 

The victim was Russian with ethnic roots in Korea and was registered on the factory’s regular payroll. 

An investigation is under way to determine the accident’s cause. 

Korea Times

It looks like the prisons in South Korea will soon be staffed with Jehovah’s Witnesses and other religions that forbid military service:

Able-bodied men who refuse to serve in the military for religious reasons will be subject to three years of alternative duty at correctional facilities, the Ministry of Defense said Friday.

In its draft guideline for revision of the conscription law, the ministry also said alternative duty will become possible in January 2020.

The move comes after the Supreme Court’s ruling in June that religious faith is a valid reason to refuse military service and the law should be amended accordingly. 

The decision triggered a dispute over where, and for how long, the conscientious objectors should serve their alternative duty, so other conscripts, many of them serving the country under harsh conditions, do not feel left out emotionally.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I wonder when the horrible air quality is going to begin to have an effect on South Korea’s life expectancy?  So far it appears it is not having much effect considering that the average life expectancy in Korea continues to climb:

Life expectancy at birth averaged 82.7 years in 2017, three months longer than a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.

The average life expectancy for South Koreans stood at 62.3 years in 1970 when South Korea began to compile relevant data.

Kim Rak-hyeon, a deputy director handling the issue at Statistics Korea, said improved public awareness of health and the policy on medical checkups have contributed to the dramatic hike in life expectancy in recent decades.

Baby boys and girls born in 2017 were expected to live 79.7 years and 85.7 years, respectively, with the male-female difference narrowing by one month to 6 years.