Category: Korea-General Topics

Here is a long, but interesting article about what is going on in the Seoul real estate market in regards to the jeonse rent system that continues to see higher prices which is causing renters to instead become buyers.  This is in turn is making the jeonse rent go even higher and causing apartment shortages:

Up until last fall, 39-year-old office worker Kim Ji-seok was renting his apartment in Nowon District, northern Seoul under a jeonse agreement, a long-term deposit contract that is usually guaranteed for two years.

At the end of the summer, however, he bought a 59 square-meter apartment nearby for 320 million won ($267,468).

He decided to buy a house after his 220 million won jeonse rose nearly 30 percent to 280 million won in just two years. “I had to borrow 50 million won from the bank just to renew my jeonse contract,” Kim said. “I just decided to buy an apartment of my own as it seemed the jeonse price would again go up after two years.”

The housing market last year saw all-time record transactions as people like Kim, who were living on jeonse agreements, decided to finally buy an apartment. [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.

Basically these international marriage brokers are using socially awkward people from the lower economic class in Korea to make money by setting up marriages that have no chance of succeeding.  Additionally many of these women appear to be using many of the same tricks that juicy girls in the ville use to fleece money out of soldiers:

Ahn argued that the government fails to protect its own citizens from illegal brokers, who he claimed deliberately approached those who are socially marginalized.

“The government should illegalize all private international marriage agencies,” he said.

South Korea in 2010 introduced a new law on international marriage agencies with a strengthened screening process. All brokers are now required to translate their clients’ certified documents of legal marital status, health conditions and criminal records and provide them to their potential spouses.

The number of such couples has dropped since then, from 35,098 in 2010 to 24,387 in 2014 — the lowest since 2003. The proportion of Korean men who were at least 10 years senior to their foreign wives has also dropped. In 2014 they made up 37.5 percent of the total, down from 44.8 percent in 2012.

Still, Korean men who married foreign brides through brokers took up 25 percent of all international marriages as of 2012, according to the latest Gender Equality Ministry data. Notably, 75.7 percent of those who married Cambodian women, and 65.8 percent of Korean husbands who married Vietnamese wives, and 40 percent of those who married women from Uzbekistan met their wives through matchmaking agencies. Over 85 percent of marriage migrants here are women, as of 2014.

Statistics also show that international marriages ended more in divorce here. Korean couples on average stayed together for 14.3 years in 2014, compared to an average of 6.4 years among international couples. Half of the divorced Korean husbands said their foreign wives ran away from home, thereby ending the marriage, according to a 2012 government report.  [Korea Herald]

You can read much more at the link.

I actually remember the last time it got this cold in Korea back in January 2001 because I was out in the field during that time freezing in a bradley turret:

South Korea on Sunday experienced the coldest weather this winter with temperatures dropping to record lows.

The temperature in Seoul fell to minus 18 degrees Celsius, the lowest since Jan. 15, 2001, when the mercury dropped to minus 18.6 degrees, the Korea Meteorological Administration said.

On Saturday, the agency issued a cold wave warning for Seoul for the first time in five years. Such a warning is issued if the morning low drops at least 15 degrees from the previous day and at least 3 degrees compared with the average year, or if the temperature remains below minus 15 degrees for two or more days.

Other parts of the country, including Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, near Seoul, were also subject to the warnings.  [Yonhap]

You can read more about the weather closures in South Korea at the link.

It looks like a lot of Korean women are willing to put up with sexual harassment for various reasons:

Nearly half of women tend not to raise the alarm when they are subjected to sexual harassment because they fear the consequences, a survey suggests.

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea polled 450 working women and 350 female university students.

Some 40.2 percent of respondents said they would not raise the issue when they are sexually harassed. Fear of the complaints rebounding on their own reputation was the biggest reason with 20.8 percent of the group, and fear of a negative impact on their career came second with 14.4 percent.

Fear of more emotional distress came in third with 13.8 percent, while 10.2 percent said they would find the prospect of having to face the aggressor too difficult.  [Chosun Ilbo]

The CSIS report favors deploying the THAAD missile defense system to South Korea.  I think it is pretty clear that there is no debate left on the military utility of deploying the THAAD system to Korea, it is strictly a political issue at this point:

A Congress-commissioned study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has recommended deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) anti-ballistic missile system in South Korea in light of the growing missile threat from Pyongyang.

The Thaad system provides a “valuable capability” for South Korea, the Washington-based think tank said in its January report reviewing U.S. defense strategy in the Asia-Pacific region.

However, it added, “Chinese demarches have made the potential U.S. deployment of Thaad on the Korean Peninsula a sensitive issue for Seoul, despite the fact that South Korea has no area defense capabilities against North Korean ballistic missiles.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read much more at the link.

It looks like unless the KTU gets rid of the fired teachers that it maintains on its rolls it will not be recognized by the government as a legitimate union.  For those unfamiliar with KTU the government decided to take action against the union 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:

The Seoul High Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the government’s decision to outlaw a progressive teachers’ union, dealing a blow to the group’s two-year legal battle to stay alive.

The appellate court’s decision to uphold a lower court’s ruling to outlaw the Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union (KTU) effectively removed the legal rights the group has enjoyed since September 2014, when the Seoul High Court issued an injunction to suspend the government’s decision to outlaw the group.

The high court’s decision was expected given a Constitutional Court ruling last year that Article 2 of the Teachers’ Labor Union Law, which bans dismissed teachers from having union memberships, was constitutional. That was the issue that led to the government’s outlawing of the KTU. The KTU argued that the article violated the basic rights of teachers.

“In accordance with the ruling by the Constitutional Court, a claim by the plaintiff that Article 2 of the Teachers’ Labor Union Law was unconstitutional cannot be legally accepted,” said the court Thursday.

The court said the KTU was required to comply with the article that prohibits it from allowing fired teachers to be members.

“As it is apparent that the KTU has been accepting non-education workers as its members, the labor ministry’s notice to outlaw the group is not against the law,” the court added.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.

Everyone in Korea get ready to bundle up:

The nation will likely experience its coldest weather conditions so far on the weekend.

The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said on Wednesday that the cold wave will abate temporarily on Thursday and Friday, but a severe cold spell will grip the nation from Saturday to Monday.

The weather agency forecast that many parts of the nation will have the coldest weather on Sunday.

The cold wave is expected to begin easing up starting next Tuesday.  [KBS World Radio]

Korea is the latest country to allow terminally ill patients to end treatment if they so desire:

The National Assembly on Friday passed the Death with Dignity Act, which allows certain life-sustaining medical treatments for terminally ill patients to be stopped. The act will take effect in January 2018.

The National Assembly convened both the Legislation and Judiciary Committee and a plenary session on Friday to vote on the bill. At the plenary session, 202 out of 203 lawmakers attending approved the bill, with one abstaining.

It has taken 19 years for the act to pass.

The issue was first brought up in 1997, after a doctor at SMG-SNU Boramae Medical Center was indicted on a charge of abetting homicide after allowing a terminally ill patient to be discharged.

According to the act, terminally ill patients or their family can make the decision to end four life-sustaining medical treatments – cardiopulmonary resuscitation, hemodialysis, anti-cancer treatment and artificial respiration – if the patients have no chance of being cured or recovering. Doctors will not be punished if they stop these four life-sustaining medical treatments if patients or their families request they be stopped. [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.

The ROK has a history of protectionism and it appears that is what they are trying to do with their legal services sector to protect them from foreign competition:

A bill to open Korea’s legal services market to law firms based in the European Union and the United States was put on hold a day ahead of the final vote by the Legislation and Judiciary Committee due to strong backlash from those countries’ ambassadors.

On Thursday, ambassadors from the European Union, United States, United Kingdom and Australia visited the committee chairman and strongly protested that the bill goes against the free trade agreements between those countries and Korea. They said Korea would even risk trade conflicts if the bill is passed without amendments.

The Foreign Legal Consultant Act, which would allow the final stage of opening the local legal services market, was scheduled to be up for vote at the committee on Friday, the last step before submitting the bill to a plenary session of the National Assembly.

The four ambassadors, including U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert and U.K. Ambassador Charles Hay, pointed to a clause banning foreign law firms from owning a stake greater than 49 percent in a joint venture as unfair, arguing that the rule would unfairly protect Korean law firms.

They also urged lawmakers to ease or abolish a qualification requirement for foreign law firms. Under the current bill, a foreign law firm hoping to launch a joint venture with a Korean law firm is required to have more than three years of experience in legal services.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

It does seem like every few years we hear about a movie studio theme park coming to South Korea that never materializes.  Maybe someone in the ROK should pursue a K-drama theme park instead of waiting to partner with a major Hollywood studio to make one?:

Is Korea a burial ground for movie studio theme parks? Every attempt to attract amusement parks by major U.S. film studios has failed in the past decade.

A huge plot of land in Songdo, Incheon, has remained idle for the last seven years. In the midst of tall weeds is a worn down sign that reads in Korean, “Paramount movie park Korea construction site.” In 2008, the site was chosen to be home to a Paramount theme park. The park was supposed to turn the area into a global tourist attraction by offering Asia’s first destination linked to Paramount, a studio famous for blockbuster films like the Indiana Jones and Mission Impossible franchises.

The project never went through because the Korean company driving it, Daewoo Motor Sales, was financially strapped due to the global financial meltdown in late 2008.
“This used to be a neighborhood that couples frequently visited but it has been empty for a long time,” said a 58-year-old realtor. “The damage caused by the cancellation of the project on the region’s commercial businesses has been huge.”

Since 2007, plans for four U.S. movie theme parks were announced but none were ever built. Analysts say the 2008 financial crisis was one cause, followed by friction between the studios and Korean project-operators.
The situation was similar when the South Gyeongsang government tried building a global theme park in the Busan-Jinhae Free Economic Zone. The local government and Fox Studios signed a memorandum of understanding in 2014, but the project never materialized.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.