Category: Korea-General Topics

For anyone thinking of ringing in the New Year in downtown Seoul just be warned that there will be a huge crowd of protesters to contend with.  If you are in the US military I highly recommend keeping away from these protest activities:

The last anti-Park Geun-hye rally of the year will be held today, overlapping with New Year’s Eve celebrations, according to rally organizers.

“We expect to break through the 10 million people mark in the accumulated number of protesters in the 10th weekly rally on Saturday,” said a spokesman for rally organizers, which are comprised of some 1,500 civic groups. “The rally will seek to not only send the old year out, but send Park out as well, and let the new year in.”

According to rally organizers, some 8.9 million have gathered throughout the country in the weekly rallies from Oct. 29, the first.

A New Year’s Eve concert for protesters is planned from 8 p.m., with singers including Jeon In-kwon and Shin Dae-chul. Shin is the son of popular Korean singer Shin Joong-hyun, called the godfather of Korean rock ‘n’ roll. Shin took issue with the fact that his father’s song “Beautiful Rivers and Mountains” was often sung by Park’s supporters in rallies.

“These Park supporters have no right to sing [my father’s] song,” Shin posted on Facebook this month. “The anti-Park rally organizers had better recruit me. I will sing it right for them all.”

President Park, impeached by the National Assembly earlier this month, faces the judgment of the Constitutional Court over a corruption and abuse of power scandal.

The candlelight vigils are held to urge Park to quit even before the verdict by the court. Protesters have said they will rally until Park is completely removed from office.

After the performances, protesters will march toward the Blue House, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Constitutional Court. Marching toward a point some 100 meters (328 feet) from the Blue House will be permitted from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., according to the Seoul Administrative Court.

Marching to some 100 meters from the Prime Minister’s Office, and some 200 meters from the Constitutional Court will be allowed until 10:30 p.m.

Protesters will likely join the crowd in front of the Bosingak Belfry in Jongno District to celebrate the bell-ringing ceremony at midnight.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

Installing this statue outside the Japanese consulate in Busan seems needlessly provocative to me.  If these activist groups are so concerned about sexual slavery then they should be putting up statues in front of the Chinese embassy in Seoul in protest of the modern day sexual slavery of North Korean women in China:

Dozens of members from a civic group without authorization attempted to install a statue of a girl symbolizing the victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery in South Korea’s largest port city of Busan, but the attempt was foiled due to opposition from officials and police.

The group tried to set up the statue on the sidewalk in front of the back door of the Japanese Consulate shortly after a weekly rally around 12:30 p.m. calling for the Japanese government to offer an apology and compensation for its wartime sexual enslavement of Asian women, many of whom were Korean.

As many as 150 activists from the group staged the rally to protest a Seoul-Tokyo landmark deal in December last year in which Tokyo apologized for its colonial-era atrocities and agreed to provide 1 billion yen (US$9.4 million) for the creation of a foundation aimed at supporting the victims, euphemistically called comfort women.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Participants to the decade-long weekly protest calling for Japan’s apology for the Japanese army’s forcible sexual slavery of Korean women during World War II in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul march toward the foreign ministry while holding up the portraits of the deceased sexual slaves, called “comfort women,” on Dec. 28, 2016. They called for the nullification of the Korea-Japan agreement on comfort women signed last year. (Yonhap)

Apparently Koreans really like their Domino’s:

If you want to open up a pizza shop, teaming up with Pizza Hut is the most expensive option. But when it comes to turnover, Domino’s is the way to go.

These were just a few of the pizza facts provided by the Korea Fair Trade Mediation Agency Monday when it released a study of pizza franchises in Korea.

The agency under the Fair Trade Commission has been releasing studies on food-related franchises this year. Past studies have dealt with coffee shops and chicken joints.

According to the study, there are 103 pizza brands with 6,015 franchise stores across the country. Some 264 are managed directly by the headquarters.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but my favorite chain pizza restaurant in Korea is Mr. Pizza.  Anyone else want to share their favorite pizza restaurant in Korea?

Have you wondered how many illegal Korean immigrants there are in the United States? According to the Korea Times the number of Korean illegal immigrants has actually been declining in recent years and has dropped to 160,000 people:

Trump reaffirmed his plan to build a wall along the Mexican border.

“After the border is secure and after everything gets normalized, we’re going to make a determination on the people that you’re talking about who are terrific people, they’re terrific people, but we are going to make a determination on that,” he said.

Early this month, the Pew Research Center estimated that 160,000 Koreans were in the U.S illegally.

The center said the number of illegal Korean immigrants in the U.S. had risen steadily since 1990 to a peak of about 200,000 in 2010 before declining moderately to 190,000 in 2011 and 180,000 in 2012. [Korea Times]

Protestors in Seoul show their Xmas wish: the president's resignation. pic.twitter.com/PfDBbzI9iZ

— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) December 24, 2016

Singing carols, dressed as santa: Thousands of South Koreans spending Christmas Eve in #Seoul protesting/partying in the streets. pic.twitter.com/w8V0leXt25

— Jean H. Lee (@newsjean) December 24, 2016

Lee Kyu-nam (L), the head of Korean Air pilots’ union, and Lee Sang-joo, the head of the airline’s union, express opinions on their planned strike in Seoul on Dec. 21, 2016, one day before their labor action. The unionized pilots earlier decided to go on a 10-day strike, demanding a pay rise. (Yonhap)

South Korean protests have a track record of causing crazy people to do stuff like this.  I don’t what this guy expected JTBC to do? The tablet with the files on it was legitimate news that they couldn’t simply ignore because it would lead to mass protests against the sitting President.  If this guy wants to be pissed off at anyone he should be upset with President Park and her friend behind this scandal Choi Soon-sil:

A truck driven by a South Korean man in his 40s slammed into the main gate of broadcasting channel JTBC on Monday, whose initial reports on President Park Geun-hye’s alleged documents leaks led to her impeachment earlier in the month.

The 45-year man surnamed Kim crashed his 1.5-ton truck into the main entrance of JTBC in Mapo in western Seoul at around 7:25 p.m. apparently in protest of the television channel’s reports on Park, according to the police.

Wearing the Marine Corps uniform, Kim tried to break into the gate by driving his truck back and forth some 10 times, but his vehicle was stuck between the doors before the police arrested him at the scene.

The incident left JTBC’s glass doors broken and the door frames warped, but caused no further damage, according to the firefighting authorities.

At the time of arrest, Kim was carrying a letter for JTBC’s president and a placard on his truck, which satirically recommended the JTBC head as the next South Korean president.

The police quoted Kim as saying that “The entire country is in a bind because of (JTBC’s) reports on a tablet PC.” The police said they will interrogate him to find out the exact motive.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link.

Impeaching Park Geun-hye won’t rid South Korea of its crippling corruption problems https://t.co/mjeUo8EXSa

— KingSejong (@KingSejong) December 16, 2016