This article focuses on the trash left on Korean beaches, but the litter problem isn’t just isolated to beaches. This same problem is also occurring in Korea’s mountains where picnickers leave others to clean up their messes as well:
Street cleaners sort trash at Haeundae Beach in Busan, July 29. / Yonhap
From beer cans to water bottles, leftover chicken, watermelon rinds and dirty clothes, major beaches across the nation are suffering from summer vacationers leaving tons of trash mounting daily.
Local governments have stepped up efforts to clean the mess, putting in more manpower and expanding cleaning hours, but had little to no success.
At Millak Waterside Park in Busan, collected trashes during weekdays an average of 2.5 tons of trash is collected each day, according to local officials. This doubles on weekends.
It takes four hours for 10 city street cleaners and volunteers to sort through and properly recycle the trash.
“I’m OK with people enjoying their vacation by eating and drinking near the beach,” said a city street cleaner. “What I don’t understand is why they disappear without cleaning up their mess.” [Korea Times]
Via a reader tip comes this story of a Korean drama supposedly promoting Islamaphobia:
New Korean comedy-drama Man who Dies to Live has caused an uproar among netizens who have accused it of misusing Islamic values and portraying a false image of Muslims in its scenes.
According to yonhapnews.co.kr, the drama, which has been broadcasted on MBC TV since July 19, tells the story of Jang Dal-goo who travels to a fictional country in the Middle East, gets rich, receives a “count” title and then becomes a citizen under the name of Saeed Fahd Ali.
He later returns to Korea to reunite with his long-lost daughter and her husband.
The actor who plays the main character of Jang Dal-goo, Choi Min-soo, appears as a stereotypical Arab man by wearing thawb, headscarf and black robe. (……..)
“That drama is sharing the wrong image of Islam and Muslims in general. It’s a total piece of garbage,” wrote Twitter user @mayssemgh, who also created a series of tweets on why MBC should not air the drama. [Asia One]
Here is my favorite quote in the article:
“It’s literally just ruining Islam’s image and making fun of Muslims.”
I would say mass terrorism, ISIS, Al Qaeda, suicide bombings, oppression of women, slave markets, beheadings, etc. have done a fine job of ruining Islam’s image well before this stupid drama ever aired.
It looks like everything turned out alright for Lee Boo-jin’s divorce. Her ex-husband was trying to get a billion dollars out of her and instead the court orders her to pay him $7.6 million. She probably has that amount of money lying under her mattress:
The Seoul Family Court granted a divorce Thursday to Hotel Shilla CEO Lee Boo-jin and Im Woo-jae, former adviser of Samsung Electro-Mechanics, ordering Lee to pay Im 8.6 billion won ($7.6 million) as part of the division of their assets.
The court gave Lee, the eldest daughter of bedridden Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee, custody of the couple’s 10 year-old son.
The Thursday ruling is a setback for Im, whose 15-year-old marriage with Lee unraveled in 2014 when Lee sued for divorce. He had asked for 1.2 trillion won in dividing their assets.
The couple was represented at the court’s ruling by their lawyers. Under the ruling, Im will have visitation rights with his son only once a month between 11 a.m. on a Saturday and 4 p.m. the following day. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Keep this study in mind the next time you see the anti-US groups out protesting; they don’t speak for the silent majority of South Koreans:
Today, a global median of 49% hold a favorable view of the U.S. This is a considerable drop from the median of 64% recorded across the same countries in the final years of the Obama administration.
In just four of 10 EU countries surveyed is the public positively inclined toward the U.S. The most widespread support is found in Poland (73%), Hungary (63%) and Italy (61%). In spite of the “special relationship” between America and the United Kingdom, only 50% of the British see the U.S. favorably. The most negative views of the U.S. are in Germany (62% unfavorable), Spain (60%) and the Netherlands (59%). And in the past year the share of the Spanish public that expresses a very unfavorable opinion has roughly tripled from 7% to 23%.
Only about four-in-ten Canadians (43%) and Russians (41%) express a favorable view of America.
There is strong support for the U.S. in Vietnam (84%), the Philippines (78%) and South Korea (75%). A majority of Japanese (57%) agree. But Australians are evenly split (48% favorable, 48% unfavorable). And roughly half of Indians (49%) have a positive view, although 42% express no opinion. [Pew Research Center via Reddit]
It will be interesting to see if the anti-US leftists try to bring back the US beef issue as a way to further drive a wedge between the US and the ROK:
The government said Thursday it has strengthened inspections on U.S. beef imports following the detection of mad cow disease in the United States.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs held a quarantine committee meeting to share information on the outbreak of mad cow disease in the U.S. and gather expert opinion. The ministry has boosted quarantine measures, increasing the ratio of the U.S. beef going through inspections to 30 percent from the current 3 percent.
The step follows the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announcing that an 11-year-old cow in Alabama was found to have an “atypical” variety of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease.
The USDA said that it is not the classic variety that is linked to Creutzfeldt Jakob disease in people. Cattle are known to be infected with “typical” BSE through feed contaminated with infectious prion agents, such as meat-and-bone meal containing protein derived from rendered infected cattle.
Atypical BSE, meanwhile, generally occurs in older cattle, usually over eight years old, and is known to arise rarely and spontaneously in all cattle populations.
The USDA emphasized that atypical BSE cases do not impact official BSE risk status recognition.
“Therefore, this finding of an atypical case will not change the negligible risk status of the United States, and should not lead to any trade issues,” it noted, making clear that it has no plan to stop beef exports. [Korea Times]
Should not lead to any trade issues? Tell that to an anti-American leftist:
Lawyers for a Democratic Society, an NGO, claimed that the government should stop U.S. beef imports “to protect the people’s health.” Korea can suspend imports under U.S. beef “import requirements” which the two countries agreed upon if it is necessary for public health and safety.
It is going to be interesting to see how useful these robots will be for travelers in such a busy airport:
The rise of robots hasn’t exactly gone smoothly, but companies are determined to get it right. Today, LG announced that it’s deploying a fleet of robots at Incheon International Airport in Seoul, South Korea.
This isn’t the first we’ve heard of these adorable robot friends. LG announced them earlier this year, and they’ve been hanging out in the Seoul airport for the last five months as part of a beta test. During that time, LG engineers have been testing and improving their performance, while the robots presumably loitered and caused trouble. But now that they’re out of their rebellious teenage years, they’re ready to be pressed into service. This is still considered a trial — after all, LG doesn’t want the robots becoming suicidal and launching themselves into a fountain to end it all.
There are two robots that are in service: an Airport Guide Robot and an Airport Cleaning Robot. The Airport Guide Robot is in place to interact with passengers. It can understand four languages — Korean, English, Chinese and Japanese — thanks to LG’s voice recognition software. It can tell you where a restaurant is located or escort late passengers straight to their gate with a quick boarding pass scan. The Cleaning Robot is in place to make sure the airport stays tidy by monitoring the areas that need the most frequent cleaning — so in other words, you’ll probably see this little guy in the bathroom the next time you’re at the Seoul airport. [Engadget]
