It appears the generational divide in South Korea is getting worse as young people are now describing themselves as the “give up” generation. Imagine if Koreans after the Japanese colonization and the Korean War decided to “give up” where would Korea be today? Instead they worked extremely hard and built the country we see today that the younger generation is complaining about:
The younger generation have had to give up so many things that they are now calling themselves the “n-Po” generation. University student Chan-mok Lim, 25, said, “Myself and a lot of my friends are working part-time jobs to pay for tuition. If when we graduate there wouldn’t be a problem finding a job, we could smile through the difficulties we have now. But the reality is that when we graduate, finding a job will be a real problem. Even for those friends who have found a job, they worry about getting married. The ones who got married, they worry about how to buy a home. We are calling ourselves the ‘n-Po‘ generation because we are giving up all the things that are of value in life.”
The barriers young people are facing are reflected in their self-depreciating language. Internet communities made up of young people are creating new slang at a fast pace. Words alluding to current slang such as “dirt spoon” in comparison to “golden spoon” (someone who was born in a wealthy household). “Dirt spoon” refers to young people who grew up in a poor home, and have little financial support. [Korea Observer]
I think this line from the article sums up quite well what is happening:
Kim Su-han, professor of Sociology at Korea University, “Looking at the situation here the ‘whining strategy’ becomes rampant. Young people who cannot enjoy any benefits in life are feeling angry or disenfranchised and have taken to mockery and self-depreciation. The older generation is recognized for their hard work, but the younger generation is more known for inheritance than hard work when it comes to achieving success. This way of thinking reflects the difficulties young people face today.”
if you can believe it only 38% of the population in Hawaii is Asian with the numbers of Koreans making up that portion of the population dropping. I bet the high cost of living in Hawaii is causing more Koreans to seek the American dream on the mainland instead:
Although the overall Korean population in the United States rose by 11.3 percent from 2009 to 2014, it fell slightly in Hawaii, according to American Community Survey data taken from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The state’s Korean population numbered 22,125 as of last year, down 337 from 2013. Koreans make up 1.6 percent of Hawaii’s 1.42 million population.
Koreans are centered in Oahu, numbering 19,973 there. Big Island (1,049), Maui (651), Kauai (429) and Lanai (15) follow, according to data.
Asians make up 38 percent of the state’s population. [Korea Times]
The left in the US continues to make the claim that President Park Geun-hye is becoming a dictator like her father. They rhetoric is clearly meant to be inflammatory and draw a response and the Korean consulate in New York City was stupid enough to take the bait:
Tim Shorrock
The main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy on Monday demanded the government offer an apology for a claim by a U.S. weekly that the South Korean consul general in New York protested an article criticizing President Park Geun-hye.
The newspaper, the New York-based Nation, ran a story last week lambasting the Park administration’s crackdown on antigovernment protesters, likening her approach to the authoritarian rule of her deceased father and late strongman, Park Chung-hee.
The writer, Tim Shorrock, since wrote a post on his Facebook account on a “spate of phone calls” that he received from his editor about a complaint lodged by the consulate general, saying officials there wanted to have a meeting “to discuss” his article.
“What a disgraceful self-portrait of Korea. I have to question if they are trying to export a Korean-style censorship to the U.S.,” NPAD floor leader Rep. Jun Byung-hun said at a senior members’ meeting. “As it is not a matter borne out of the consulate general, I demand a proper explanation and grave apology from the government.”
NPAD lawmaker Jung Cheong-rae also said: “It’s a shame that the reporter exposed via Facebook that the consulate general officials called the newsroom to complain about the story and requested a meeting with the editor. We’re urging a probe into the consulate general officials.” [Korea Herald]
You can read the rest at the link, but how stupid can you be to take the troll bait coming from a publication like The Nation? Anyone that follows the news in the US knows not to expect any unbiased reporting in The Nation. This is like complaining to Sean Hannity about not having unbiased reporting on President Obama. Anyway here is the link to the article in the Nation by Tim Shorrock which continues the leftist claims of South Korea becoming a dictatorship again which as I have explained before is absolutely ridiculous.
I sure don’t remember the left complaining that South Korea was becoming a dictatorship when President Roh Moo-hyun was busy putting down protests around Camp Humphreys or in Incheon around the MacArthur Statue which featured Braveheart style battles. The claim is as stupid as the people who claim President Obama is setting himself up to be a dictator. It is just propaganda best left to echo chamber media and not taken seriously.
This seems to happen to every national health insurance program, at some point taxes have to be raised to make up for increased costs which is difficult politically for politicians to do. Thus they begin to run into deficits:
Major forms of social insurance in South Korea are threatened with unsustainability. Health insurance finances in particular are set to run out in ten years without an increase in premiums or cuts to payouts. On this basis, the administration has argued for raising premiums and reducing benefits – an approach it is billing as “the right cost, the right payout.”But with income and generational differences poised to generate conflict over any social insurance changes, no matter how badly needed, the issue is now likely to be a key concern on the upcoming political calendar, and the 2016 parliamentary and 2017 presidential elections in particular.
On Dec. 4, the administration published a report on South Korea’s long-term financial prospects through the year 2060. The analysis focused on the future financial situation based on the current economic growth rate and changes in the population structure, assuming no or only minor changes in the social insurance system. It marks the first time an administration has ever published financial predictions for a date so many decades away. [Hankyoreh]
I don’t really see the purpose of a glass bridge but the city of Chuncheon is about to spend a bunch of money to make one anyway:
Chuncheon City will build the country’s largest skywalk in order to enable visitors the opportunity to stroll above the water.
The city in Gangwon Province plans to spend six-point-eight billion won to construct the Soyang Skywalk near the Statue of Soyang River Maiden at the waterfront of Lake Euiam.
The 174-meter facility will stretch to the heart of the lake, with the 140-meter section being a glass walkway. [KBS World Radio]
It is good to see the anti-government protests this weekend did not turn violent like the last ones. I do have to chuckle in regards to the opinion of how many people showed up. The protesters say they had 50,000 while the police say there was 14,000. At least the discrepancy isn’t as bad as all the million man marches in the US where there is only a few thousand people actually there:
Tens of thousands of protesters held a massive rally Saturday to protest the government’s move to adopt state history textbooks and push for labor reform and it ended without any clashes with police.
The rally, the second of its kind in three weeks, brought together about 14,000 participants who gathered at Seoul Plaza in central Seoul and marched peacefully, according to police. Organizers put the number at some 50,000.
The focal point of the rally was whether the rally would turn violent as some participants at the Nov. 14 one brandished metal pipes, clashing with police who fired water cannons at them.
A farmer still remains in critical condition after being knocked down by a police water cannon.
Organizers vowed to hold Saturday’s rally in a peaceful manner, while police also warned that they will take stern action if the rally turns violent. [Yonhap]
So does anyone agree with the Korean court that the KCTU can be trusted to hold a peaceful rally this weekend in Seoul?:
A court has ruled against a police move to ban a rally planned for Saturday in central Seoul by civic, labor and farmers groups that held a massive anti-government demonstration on Nov. 14.
The Seoul Administrative Court said Thursday that it had accepted the request from the groups to annul the police ban on their second rally.
The decision comes five days after police announced a prohibition of the Dec. 5 rally requested by the groups, including the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), citing a possible repeat of the violence between police and protesters at the previous demonstration.
“It is unreasonable to presume that the second rally will be violent only because the organizers are the same to the first one,” the court said. “The organizers have repeatedly said they will hold the second one peacefully.” [Korea Times]
