Category: Korea-General Topics

Her office is claiming this is libel against the President, but even if she did have a procedure done is it illegal for the President to have cosmetic surgery?  Every time I hear these accusations I wonder what these people expect Park to do when the tragedy happened, drive to Cholla-do and jump into the water and rescue all the students herself?

The presidential office Cheong Wa Dae on Friday denied as “groundless” allegations that President Park Geun-hye received plastic surgery during a 2014 ferry disaster.

Despite Cheong Wa Dae’s repeated denials, allegations have continued to dog Park that she was absent from her office for some seven hours during the sinking of the Sewol ferry on April 16, which left more than 300 passengers, mostly young students, dead or missing.

Presidential spokesman Jung Youn-kuk stressed that “malicious” reports on the allegations constitute “grave” libel.

“The continuing allegations that Park underwent plastic surgery on the day the ferry Sewol sank are totally groundless rumors,” he told reporters, stressing that the president herself reconfirmed that the allegations were unfounded.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Thousands now marching in Seoul, calling for president to resign. Biggest Korean demonstration since 2008 beef protests. About 43,000 here. pic.twitter.com/JCriIL02QV

— James Pearson (@pearswick) November 5, 2016

Is there anything Choi Soon-sil is not linked to at this point?:

Did scandal-mired Choi Soon-sil play a role in sinking Hanjin Shipping?

Rumors are rife that the shadowy confidant of President Park Geun-hye was an “invisible hand” blocking creditors’ financial aid to the troubled shipping company.

Pressed by snowballing debts, the nation’s No.1 shipper filed for court receivership in August, triggering chaos in the global maritime cargo transportation network. The company has since been forced to sell its core assets, including vessels that operate on its lucrative Asia-U.S. route, in a desperate effort to stay afloat.

There are allegations that decision-makers in the government and Hanjin’s key creditor, the state-backed Korea Development Bank, were positive about extending a lifeline to Hanjin with a cash injection or other measures until March. But an “invisible hand” cut in and abruptly stopped the process, according to the Joongang Ilbo daily.

The newspaper said Choi, 60, broke the deal because of Hanjin’s “lukewarm support” of two nonprofit foundations she controls. The organizations — Mir and K-Sports — were allegedly set up with tens of billions of won “donated” by Korea’s big companies and Choi siphoned funds from the organizations, like personal ATMs.

According to news reports, Hanjin wired a billion won ($877,500) to the organizations, which was less than the amount from other companies with smaller sales than Hanjin.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but it seems like anything remotely negative that has happened in Korea critics are looking for some way to link Choi to it.

Quartz.com has a long, but interesting read about the growing gender war in South Korea.  Of course the Gangnam murder case is brought up of evidence of growing misogyny against women in South Korea without providing the context that the murder was by a schizophrenic homeless man who was in and out of mental hospitals.  Regardless I think most people would agree there is room for improvement in South Korea in regards to the treatment of women.  However, one group Megalia is accused of being a radical feminist group that is further dividing the sexes in South Korea with its various activities.  The group’s logo in fact makes light of how small male penises are in South Korea.

In response to the growing feminist movement in Korea Korean men are now complaining they are being discriminated against and one guy even jumped off a bridge to promote the idea:

Speaking up for men’s rights isn’t a fringe idea in Korea—it has become mainstream. “What’s striking about the current situation is the extent to which… men seem to be feeling very comfortable in saying that women’s demands for greater rights or greater protection are misguided,” says Koo Se-woong, a former university teacher and managing editor of liberal news site Korea Expose.

In one extreme display of men’s rights, in 2013, the heavily indebted founder of men’s activism group Man of Korea (link in Korean), Song Jae-gi, decided to jump off a bridge to raise money for his group. TV cameras were present as he readied to throw himself into the Han River. Among the goals of Man of Korea was the abolishment of the government’s agency the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, and compensation for Korean men who served in the military (all Korean men must serve two years in the army). His body was found a few days later.  [Quartz.com]

Anyway for those that have 15 minutes to spare I recommend reading the whole article.

Here is another drunk woman in trouble story:

A reportedly drunken woman was injured when she fell into a car parking lift in Busan at 1:50 a.m. Saturday.

The woman, surnamed Kim, was apparently in a hurry to use the bathroom.

She ran into the lift to relieve herself where she could not be seen, but she fell two meters through a 60 centimeter gap between the lift and a wall, according to police. She broke her pelvis.

Firefighters rescued her, and she was taken to hospital.

Police are investigating why the parking lift was open and unstaffed, allowing anyone to enter. [Korea Times]

If you have the think that there is a lot of elderly taxi cab drivers in South Korea you would be right:

The advanced age of taxi drivers in Seoul has recently become a hot issue after a number of them breathed their last behind the wheel.

According to the Korea Transportation Safety Authority, 19.5 percent of all taxi drivers in the nation were 65 or older at the end of last year, and in Seoul 51 percent are over 60.

According to a 2013 study by the KTSA, a whopping 73.1 percent of cab drivers over 65 who had driven taxis for more than 25 years were involved in car accidents in the previous three years, compared to only 7.5 percent who had driven taxis for less than five years.

That means elderly drivers are 10 times more likely to get into accidents than younger ones. [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

10 Questions You’ll Probably Be Asked as a Foreigner in Korea https://t.co/EtweO9A0U0 #10magazine #korealife #korea

— 10 Magazine (@10_Magazine) October 18, 2016

I doubt the young woman in question is the first politically connected person to receive favorable treatment in admissions to a Korean university.  So why are people making a big deal about it now?:

After recent allegation that a granddaughter of President Park Geun-hye’s close mentor was granted admissions to Ewha Womans University unfairly, professors will hold a rally Wednesday to demand the university president step down, taking up a cause students have been championing for some 80 days.“Ewha Womans University, which has been under fire for its plans to build a college of continuing education, is now mired in a political issue,” said an emergency planning committee of Ewha professors in an official statement. “University President Choi Kyung-hee and the board of directors are handling the issues at the school dictatorially and failing to communicate with the university staff and students. It is high time that professors take up the cause.”

Professors will hold a rally in front of the main hall of the university, which has been occupied by students since July 28. It is the first time since the university’s establishment in 1886 that professors of the university have called for the ouster of the president.

The allegations concern Choi Soon-sil, daughter of Choi Tae-min, who was President Park Geun-hye’s mentor.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but the young woman in question won a gold medal in the Asian Games for an equestrian event and the university added winning a gold medal in equestrian as an additional selection criteria the year Choi applied to the university.  She also supposedly misses classes and turns in homework late and still gets good grades.  To me this is all hearsay and who knows if it is true.

Latest #Profile @BBCRadio4 is on #Samsung's #LeeKunHee. Quite good imho. (disclosure: I'm quoted). Listen/download: https://t.co/c2suC66UMp

— Aidan Foster-Carter (@fcaidan) October 16, 2016

Person who recently visited the city tends to think so:

If one were to crown the most bizarre city in South Korea, many users on r/korea would undoubtedly pick Songdo. Officially known as the Songdo International Business District, this 40 billion USD project is promoted as a smart, green, low-carbon city a fifteen-minute drive and a short flight away from a third of the world’s population.

Little do people realize that the city is far from just about everything else. Songdo is part of Incheon, and to get to the former you have to go through the latter if you’re not coming from the airport. From Seoul I took the subway, which crawled past enormous apartment buildings for what felt like more than an hour. I found myself wondering what Douglas MacArthur — the nuke-loving American general who surprised the invading Korean People’s Army here seventy years ago — would say if he could see what this village of brick and tile had become.

It was all too much for me, or at least for my stomach. By the time my map app was telling me I was in Songdo I was about to collapse from starvation. I staggered out of the subway into the dark gray empty station and wandered South Korea’s usual labyrinthine hallways, stairwells, and escalators echoing with electronic voices until I emerged in the middle of… nowhere.  [Korea Expose]

You can read the rest at the link of what was a humorous read about what is likely Korea’s most empty city.